Matthew Vaughn loves a stylish action scene and, in directing The King’s Man, he has made it known once again. With his new World War I-era prequel film in the Kingsman franchise, Vaughn has effectively provided himself with the opportunity to flex entirely new muscles by having his cast and stunt teams engage in sword fighting sequences. Djimon Hounsou, who plays Shola in the film, is no stranger to a good action sequence himself. Still, the actor tells ComicBook.com that Vaughn’s new King’s Man film presented challenges to him that he had not experienced before.
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“Well, the biggest challenge had to do with the physicality of the action sequence, and we’ve had a tremendous help and been guided by the stunt team,” Hounsou explained. “Our body doubles were absolutely amazing, you couldn’t tell the difference between when I come in and when my stunt double takes over. But that said, it was just such a difficult scene to shoot, very, very difficult. Of course it has its emotional rollercoaster. I mean, the story, the father and son emotional drama was playing out throughout this sequence. But it was quite a beautiful challenge and certainly one that’s gratifying looking at the finished product.”
It all boils down to Vaughn having the idea emerge from watching other films based in the same era. “Basically, I re-watched a movie called The Man Who Would Be King,” Vaughn told ComicBook.com. “That had everything in it that I’d forgotten about in filmmaking, everything I loved, epic, adventure, history, great characters, sadness, pathos, as well as humor, action. It had everything. And I was like, ‘Why is no one making movies like this anymore?”‘And I said, ‘Why don’t we make The Man Who Would Be King’s Man?’ And then that went up on the wall, we wrote it up.”
Hounsou has been involved with films that are period pieces and space operas. The King’s Man, in fact, is a prequel film to a couple of movies based on a comic book series. Hounsou has been in Marvel titles like Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain Marvel, and What If…?. Plus, Vaughn has played his hand in a Marvel world with X-Men: First Class. The combined resumes of the cast and crew of The King’s Man are quite impressive. However, Vaughn admits, he and his cast had a bit to learn to execute the over-the-top action sequences seen in The King’s Man.
“Yes, you go, ‘Swords, wow, how are we going to do this?’ So we went back and we looked at all the Errol Flynn movies and stuff,” Vaughn said. “And I was watching these guys fight, and I’m like, ‘Jesus, this is amazing. It just doesn’t translate as well, because the camera’s just there. You’re just watching it.’ So we said, ‘Well, if we can get in with it,’ and so we started looking at that choreography. And then I did some research and we found swords which had guns put into them.”
“And then I wanted to go back to those big adventure movies of the bi-plane, and everything going wrong, and then slip some Kingsman stuff in it. But, the limitations becomes the challenge,” the director went on. “You go, ‘Okay …’ In the end of the day, I don’t care what anyone says, you can have a sword fight, or you can turn them into light sabers, they’re still a bloody sword, but one glows and has a very cool sound effect on it, and the other doesn’t, it’s all the same, ultimately.”
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