*Interview* Dimitri Logothetis Talks His Latest Movie Jiu Jitsu & More

AR: Thank you for your time Dimitri. Can you tell us a little about your martial arts background?

DL: Yeah, in my earlier days between 19 and 26, I got two black belts, one in Tang Soo Do from a gentleman by the name of Howard Jacks. He was a two-time world champion kickboxer. He was the first black man to win in Tokyo, Japan. He had hurt his knee in a fight while doing karate and was told he would never be able to fight the way he used to, so he got into kickboxing and would fight with only one leg. I trained under Howard for many years and then later trained in Kenpo with Master Ed Parker, the founder of Kenpo and got a black belt in it too. I remember going for one on one classes and Ed would have a private client come in to train – the private client was Elvis Presley. I trained with Elvis about three times.

AR: Was Elvis good at martial arts?

DL: Ah yeah, Elvis was great. He was very enthusiastic and he used to use moves on the stage. Martial arts helped centre him. Ed had loads of major celebrities that were private clients.

AR: What lead you to your career in the movie industry?

DL: I was an actor in the early years. I was in a movie called New York, New York with Liza Minelli and Robert De Niro. Scorsese was looking over my shoulder at the short story I was writing and he said can I read that. He said “You’re a really good story teller, you should consider going into film school”. Martin Scorsese wrote me a letter recommending me to a film school and I ended up getting a Masters in television and film directing.

AR: Growing up who were your idols in the movie world?

DL: God, there was a lot: Francis Ford Coppola made some significant pictures; Martin Scorsese we talked about; Sam Peckinpah. There was a lot of wonderful film makers that influenced me in how they would tell a story.

AR: Do you find writing, producing and directing your movies stressful? What would be your strategy to approaching these challenges?

DL: I think writing isn’t a problem as you do it on your own over a course of time. Producing is always a challenge as everything is completely new – you can’t tell anybody how to produce any one project because with independent film-making every project is unique, with putting money and distribution together and getting the actors together is a unique challenge. It’s a different challenge everyday.

AR: The action genre looks to be your go-to, you know how to direct and write an awesome action movie. Was action always your preferred genre?

DL: Yeah I find the action genre to be single minded, simple. As you have a good guy and a bad guy. The good guy is living by a code and he fears liberal morality and is doing the right thing, where as the bad guy isn’t. I think putting these stories across especially today is very, very important so we can all escape a little bit.

AR: I loved the Air America series with Lorenzo Lamas. What attracted you to the series?

DL: Well my director of photography now was the director of photography of the series and it was about 60 miles from where I lived. He rang me and said I have got to meet the producers of this cop show they were filming called Mike Hammer with Stacy Keach. He said that they hadn’t found a guy who understands action and how to write the characters and that I would be perfect for the series, so I went up and hung out. The producers liked me and Lorenzo liked me, so he recommended I do the pilot of Air America.

AR: What was it like working with Lorenzo?

DL: He is great, he is exactly what you want and he is very positive. He shows up on set everyday and is very thankful to be working. He was always so positive and had such great energy.

AR: Your reboot of Kickboxer was amazing! Was it always your plan to have Van Damme return and pass the torch on?

DL: Without Jean Claude, I don’t think it would have worked. For me it had to be that way. He was great and the way he did it was a lot of fun.

AR: It was a fun martial arts movie.

DL: Thank you, we tried to inject it with as much fun as possible.

AR: I loved how Kurt went through the motions of getting his ass kicked to being a force to be reckoned with.

DL: The martial arts genre is a misunderstood genre. It’s about the little boy or little girl in us that got bullied. It’s the true superhero genre.

There is nothing fake about what we do. The guys that I use are all real martial artists. Most of them got into martial arts because they were bullied, so they trained and trained and trained to which they weren’t bullied by anybody.

When you see Alain do a front or back flip, he does it all by himself. He has been training since he was 12 years old. He weighs 205lbs and can run up the side of a wall – he’ 6ft 1. He moves like an Asian martial artist who weighs 140lbs.

AR: When the Kickboxer franchise became yours how did you find the perfect Kurt Sloan & Tong Po?

DL: Well… You go through the motions of looking at a bunch of people and it’s not easy. You need to be able to make sure you have a real martial artist. After looking around and auditioning some stunt teams, I saw Alain and he stuck out to me. I went and spoke to him after and asked if he wanted to do a reading.

AR: Same question again, but for Eric, Darren Shahlavi was the perfect casting…

DL: Darren was recommended to me by Alain. Regretfully, he passed away at a young age. I loved working with him and he had such a huge passion for the genre.

AR: What was the biggest challenge during Kickboxer Vengeance?

DL: Putting the film together and having enough time to shoot it properly. You know when you shoot a martial arts film you are only given between 24-30 days. So if you have things with actors that you need to double, it takes up more of that time frame. That’s why it works better to have martial artists doing their own stunts, as it takes twice as long having to double an actor for that sequence. In order to do it right you need these guys.

AR: Dave Bautista was really good casting…

DL: Yeah, a lot of people said you should have got a real Asian guy. I was like ‘he is!’. He’s Filipino. People were shocked to learn that.

AR: Kickboxer Vengeance was successful and you, Alain & Van Damme returned for Retaliation. Was it always a plan to make a set of movies?

DL: It was in my mind. Everyone thought I was crazy – as soon as I found out Van Damme was game I was like ‘what the heck! Lets do it’. So I wanted to up the ante and I think we did with Retaliation. I upped the octane quite a bit. Remember that one where he takes out like 22 guys in a single shot? I never cut the cameras.

AR: That must have been so hard to film?

DL: It was really hard – the stunt guys worked on it for two weeks. We choreographed it and I couldn’t get camera operators to do it as they couldn’t figure out how to go about it. So I convinced the stunt co-ordinator to do it as he knew all the moves.

AR: Besides memorable fights, Retaliation featured an awesome cast featuring loads of real life fighters. How was that?

DL: It was great. I had made a documentary called Champions Forever with Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Larry Holmes and Ken Norton. It was one of the most successful documentaries ever. I have always been fortunate to work with world champions for many years and they tend to be the nicest people.

Mike Tyson was amazing. I ordered a camera called a ‘phantom’ that shoots at a thousand frames a second so I could just get Mike Tyson punching at the camera. When people asked about Mike’s punch and if he still had it, I showed them the footage and would say “look, I had to shoot this at a thousand frames a second to capture it, what do you think?” (laughs)

AR: Another interesting trait for Van Damme’s character was him returning but being blind…

DL: It was Van Damme’s idea – he wanted to do it! I think it worked really well.

AR: Chris Lambert was a great bad guy!

DL: Chris Lambert played such a great bad guy. I have always wanted to work with Chris, who also has a pedigree in the martial arts genre. He really dug in and created a good character.

AR: The end fight sequence was amazing, like David & Goliath..

DL: (laughs) Well, what’s really funny is Alain has some wonderful enthusiasm and he will do anything. So he come up and said to me he was talking with Thor and when we start the fight, Thor drops the shoulder and rushed him and hit him to start the fight. I had this set that was made of rubber, but nevertheless rubber is hard, its softer than stone but it’s not foam. I said to Alain, “You know he weighs 420lbs, right?” and Alain said “Yeah” I said “Have you ever played football Alain?” he said “No” so I tried explaining again, but anyway I ended up setting it up and shouting ‘ACTION’. Thor drops the shoulder and rushes Alain and Alain goes flying. I measured it and he went 18ft (laughs). I said ‘that’s perfect’. We weren’t going to do that take again! (laughs)

It’s hard when you have a man that big – once he starts moving you can’t really get him to stop. The momentum alone keeps him going like a train. So I said to Thor, “Can you throw Alain, like just grab him and throw him?”. He replied, “yaah sure” and he picked up Alain and threw him. Again, it was another 18ft. (laughs)

This is what’s so wonderful about the genre. If you get the right cast you can do things live without the phony things, like in superhero films where they have to animate everything. The stuff you see on camera with me is real – it is the actual guys really doing these things.

The scene with Tyson and Alain in the hallway, I told Alain to be careful but he said he would be good as he was pretty quick. But of course Tyson clipped him in the chin. Alain just barely moved out of the way. He looked and turned to me and was like ‘OMG I just got hit right here by Mike Tyson’ (laughs). It is all a lot of fun and the critics loved it which I wasn’t expecting.

AR: You’re doing a third Kickboxer, right?

DL: Yes, Armageddon. It’s one of the best scripts of the franchise. I worked on it for the past two years. We plan to do that next year. Kurt Sloan will come full circle because Vengeance is something that turns you dark, so in order for him to continue and complete his journey, he will have to get dark before he sees the light and sheds himself of it.

AR: Will Van Damme and Mike Tyson return for the third entry?

DL: Yes.

AR: Can you say how big their roles will be? Will it be cameos?

DL: There’s no such thing as cameos if your bringing back those guys. They’re either leads or not.

AR: Will Armageddon be your final Kickboxer movie?

DL: Ermm no, that would be completing the trilogy for the moment and deciding in the future what I may or may not want to do. Just like the Batman franchise, there is no reason to walk away.

AR: Would you dip your toe into the Bloodsport remake/reboot? You would be the right guy for the job.

DL: I agree with you. The problem is that it’s constantly on and off, and I don’t like to talk about other people’s projects, but I think they’re working through the rights issue at the moment.

AR: Jui Jitsu reunites you and Alain, how did this project come about?

DL: Well when I was finishing Kickboxer: Retaliation, I was talking to one of the domestic companies here and they said that science fiction is very popular and does really well. They asked how I would feel about doing science fiction – martial arts and I said that would be fun. At that point I decided I would go out and write a comic book so I could see what it would look like. So I wrote a comic book and got it published just to see what it would look like, and I liked the way it all turned out. I decided to press forward and write the script and from that, put it together.

AR: Was Alain always your first choice for the lead role?

DL: Well I felt Alain was the Jiu Jitsu master – that’s where he comes from. He is a sixth degree Jiu Jitsu master and he trained with the Gracies. There is no one better.

AR: The cast is phenomenal. You have Nicolas Cage, Tony Jaa & Frank Grillo – what was it like working with these icons?

DL: Well Nick is an incredible actor and he embraces genre. He loves genre and he done an incredible job. He came up with a really wonderful interpretation of his character and he had alot of fun with it too. I try to bring in as much fun as I can in the martial arts genre. I think you have to have a certain amount of fun and not take it too seriously. Nick is great for that. Tony is amazing – he is a legend over in Asia and the things he can do with his body! With him and Alain, the things they do are pretty entertaining for all audiences.

AR: Is it true Grillo and Nicolas Cage study martial arts?

DL: I know Nicolas did… Frank said he boxed but Nicolas studied under Egan Mashado who is a legend in Jiu Jitsu – he trains and prepares a number of stars for action films.

AR: Will Jiu Jitsu be a standalone movie or the start of a new franchise?

DL: Well it would be nice if we could do some more. We are discussing a sequel maybe, perhaps a prequel. There are all kinds of possibilities with Jiu Jitsu.

AR: When will release be?

DL: November 2020

AR: A movie poster I recently seen that had your name attached was a movie titled ‘Man Of War’…

DL: Ooh yeah, well we’re working on getting a leading man and are pursuing that in a big way. It’s a beautiful screenplay written by Gary Scott Thomas who wrote the Fast & Furious. I am also working with Gary on a couple of other huge projects. But he wrote this script and its wonderful – completely different from the martial arts projects. It’s an action project. There are some more projects coming up but we will announce them between September and November time.

AR: Thank you for your time Dimitri it has been a blast.

DL: Thank you for your support, Jeff.