Talking Tiger Man with Director James Campbell
Late last summer we shared a campaign for a project known as Tiger Man. This was a project many on the Bulletproof Action staff believed in and were more than happy to support alongside other action fans from around the globe.
Last October, the first step in making Tiger Man a reality was taken. Director James Campbell, leading man Paul London, fight choreographer Jean-Paul Ly and the rest of the dedicated cast and crew filmed a proof of concept video.
In case you missed it, the Tiger Man proof of concept video was released earlier this month and you can check it out below…
If you missed out on the first Tiger Man campaign, Director James Campbell has launched a second campaign to get Tiger Man to the next step in the process. You can check out the campaign and the perks associated with being a backer by clicking here!
And for even more on Tiger Man, read on for a brief interview I conducted with James Campbell…
CTB: James, you have come up with a wildly unique concept for Tiger Man… Elvis Presley investigating the death of Bruce Lee. What was the inspiration for this idea?
JC: I’d always been a massive fan of Elvis from a very early age, and pretty much the same for kung fu/action flicks. My nan would take me to the local video store where I would rent Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Van Damme and Arnie flicks. But it was when I stumbled upon some footage on YouTube of The King running some kind of seminar and it blew my mind and I thought it was immediately cool.
My mind then went into full Tarantino mode and just started thinking about “what if?” and then it was a case of writing the script and deciding on what cool things I wanted to see in a proof of concept. Our aim is to make people want to see the feature immediately after.
I also loved both Bubba Ho-tep and Elvis & Nixon which gave you a little taste of the KING throwing some karate moves – but with Tiger Man, we get to go full throttle with it and make the king a total bad-ass.
We say that this could be an alternate reality as we are going to be changing history and playing around with the mythos of some of these huge pop culture icons.
CTB: James, why was Paul London the right man for the job?
JC: The idea came from a discussion I had with Paul in Carlisle in the UK. I got the train up to see him and we had lunch and just chatted about movies and projects I had in the pipeline. I wanted Paul for this role because I know he gets it, and has that passion for both acting and Elvis. (Just look at his Lucha Underground gear)
Paul also sent me a self-tape for a role in my upcoming werewolf-western feature The Moonshine Gang of Cheyenne, and he absolutely smashed it. I’d worked with Paul before on a short film called Please Don’t Die, which was a comedy about a group of wrestling obsessed friends, and once again Paul blew me away with his scene, but the Moonshine stuff and what he’s going to be doing in Tiger Man is completely different to what people have seen from him before. I think he’s gonna shock a few people. (in a good way)
CTB: Another big get for Tiger Man is Jean-Paul Ly from Jailbreak. How excited are you to be working with Jean-Paul?
JC: I’m extremely excited to have JP on-board as our fight choreographer. From the very beginning, I had my eye on him for this, as I had seen some of his stuff posted on social media – but it was also actor Jacob Anderton who had worked with JP on Vengeance 2, and Jacob had mentioned how good he was as well as being a super nice guy.
CTB: Last question… what’s your favorite Elvis Presley song?
JC: Mine is “Polk Salad Annie” which is actually a cover, but I’ve been listening to it non-stop since I started this project, and it features heavily in Tiger Man. There is literally nothing cooler than the live performance of this track at his Vegas show in 1970. Check it out on YouTube! It’s so good.
CTB: Thanks James! Best of luck to you. And a reminder to all our readers to check out the campaign by clicking here. Support it if you can and even if you can’t contribute, you can help spread the word so the Tiger Man project can get to the next level.
