Starring in the new action film Customs Frontline, Nicholas Tse is a multi-talented Hong Kong star.
Nicholas Tse is an actor, singer, and chef and in his new film Customs Frontline, he acts in a lead role and for the first time, serves as the action choreographer.
Directed by Herman Yau, Customs Frontline is about Hong Kong customs officers discovering illegal weapons on an unauthorized cargo ship, prompting them to lead an investigation into the source of the firearms. The film follows the agents uncovering the operation. With intense and thrilling action scenes, Customs Frontline is entertaining from start to finish. The film’s explosions and hand-to-hand combat leave viewers on the edge of their seats throughout. Watching the movie makes it clear that an immense amount of effort was put into every scene and moment.
We were lucky to be able to sit down with star Nicholas Tse for an exclusive interview.
The Knockturnal: Welcome to New York. Happy to have you here. Have you been to New York any time recently?
NT: Actually, I’ve been here a few times, but it’s been a long time. The last time I was here was like 10 years ago.
The Knockturnal: 10 years ago? Okay. So when you’re here, is there anything that you want to see? I know you’re a chef. Is there a restaurant you want to check out while you’re here?
NT: I’m sure there are a lot of things I want to check out, but I don’t think I have enough time. Where is the best place for a decent pizza?
The Knockturnal: That’s what’s good about New York. Almost any corner, you’ll always find a place.
NT: That’s what everybody says but there must be that one specific pizza joint.
The Knockturnal: Joe’s Pizza is pretty famous, but there’s a lot. There’s some great ones all over.
The Knockturnal: Can you tell us a little bit about Customs Frontline and what drew you to the project?
NT: I think it’s a very unique topic. Customs, especially Hong Kong, being an island that was surrounded by the ocean, but no one’s really ever made a movie above the ocean. It’s always a challenge shooting with elements. I think that in particular, and then the cast, it’s like a bunch of old friends gathering together, and Jacky [Cheung] being a real musician, I guess. He hasn’t made a movie for almost eight years. I’ve always loved his work as a filmmaker or an actor. Being able to work with him, I think it’s what really pulled me to the movie.
The Knockturnal: You mentioned the elements. When I saw the movie, you were working with water, fire, and hanging in the air. Was there anything you had to do to train for those specific types of scenes?
NT: I trained a lot on my combat skills, a lot on my flexibility, actually. I was wearing that short-sleeved uniform the whole time. I didn’t even have any protective padding on. I do all my own stunts, so I think it’s very important that I try not to get hurt falling off or whatever. A lot of stuff is just from experience. You can’t really train blowing yourself up. I’ve been doing that since I was a teenager, so I guess that’s all from experience.
The Knockturnal: Without any padding, how do you ensure safety? I know you were the choreographer for the action in the movie, so not just yourself, but everyone in the scene. How do you maintain that sense of safety?
NT: We just train more, and we try to achieve some sort of aerial awareness, so even when we’re falling off, we actually know all the rotations, and we try to land on where we want to land, like the shoulder blades or wherever there’s not really a sharp joint. Things like that, it’s very minute, but it’s so critical. If you land on your elbow or your wrist, you’re done. We practice a lot on mats and stuff, and then we hope for the best. So, when you’re doing your own stunts, and I know you’re passionate about that, why do you feel like that is advantageous over using something like CGI? We can do lots of things on the computer, but you chose to do practical stunts. I still think, especially for hand-to-hand combat, the computer is not as good yet. Maybe 5-8 years down the line, for sure, it will be, if not better than the human. But, for now, I think the human is still superior in terms of stunts, and frankly speaking, the Hong Kong movies don’t have that budget to pull off the perfect CG production yet. We’re not Iron Man, right? I also think that there are a lot of nuances that is very valuable to the actor. The micro-expressions, when you feel yourself in the moment of the stunt, almost pushing yourself to the edge, your expressions are different than when you’re trying to act it out on the green screen. The blast wave of an explosion moving your shirt, moving your hair, it’s different.
The Knockturnal: When you were balancing being both an actor and a choreographer, how did you find learning to be able to do both?
NT: It’s hard, especially with this movie, because I’m always in the elements, so I couldn’t even watch playback, I couldn’t adjust different stuff between shots, so I had to rely a lot on either the director or my other crew to give me a thumbs-up, hey, how was it? They’re like, “okay,” “but I didn’t feel good,” “no, no, trust me, it’s okay, it’s okay.” I guess that communication was very imperative.
The Knockturnal: Can you walk us through the steps of designing a fight scene a little bit?
NT: First, to me, I think body language is no different than the dialogue. I think one is just spoken, but one is your body. I think most of the time, body language is actually even more international, it has no barrier. So for me, even if it’s fighting or whatever movements, I think it’s all about storytelling. But the hard thing is that each character should have their own specific or, if not unique, type of body language, because they’re just different personalities. So we try to, through body language, enhance whatever emotions the director is trying to present in that one scene.
The Knockturnal: I think that’s actually a really good strength of action movies, because they can transcend language barriers, cultural barriers. I think everyone is going to respond to the type of stunts we see in the movie, the type of hand-to-hand combat scenes, it’s really universal.
NT: But with this one, I guess what’s really different is, in my previous movies when I’m doing action scenes, I’m trying to kill a guy. But with this one, I’m trying to settle the situation. There are scenes where I’m holding on the short sticks fighting. I’ve never hit the guy’s head. I’ve always hit shoulders or below the head, below the neck actually, because of the role I was playing. So there was kind of restraint on that kind of action, where in my previous movie, I’m always trying to kill the guy.
The Knockturnal: That is one thing I noticed, your character is always focused on saving people. If you could describe that character in a few words, what do you think they would be?
NT: A stubborn son of a bitch. He’s a very straightforward guy, tunnel vision.
The Knockturnal: I definitely saw that in the movie. During production, were there any challenges you faced, especially taking on multiple roles in the production of the film?
NT: I think the most awkward thing is when you put yourself in danger. That’s one thing, and I’m used to it. But when you’re asking another actor to walk through explosions, it’s just really not a good feeling. You have to do a lot of judgments. What if they get hurt? What if this and that? What if it’s an NG and we have to retake the whole thing and spend another three days setting up the explosives? It’s just a lot of calculations. A lot of times, there’s no answer to these calculations, these hypotheses. That’s how I grew up. I remember taking this girl, Cya. We were running through that war zone. All the explosions were real and it’s her first time. I talked to her for half a day. I said, look, this is the route, point A to point B. There’s about eight explosions and they’re all real. You could get hurt. You could get really, really hurt if we don’t do this correctly. She really wanted to do it, but I was really worried. But at the same time, that’s how I came to accumulate my experiences. When I was a kid, someone gave me that chance to take my first step. I really wanted to give her that first chance, but then I was also at the same time really worried that she’d get hurt. Trying to balance this kind of decision-making, that was really tough.
The Knockturnal: Working with the cast and the director, were there any other on-set moments that you can say were really memorable for you?
NT: They were all pretty memorable. Especially with the stunts, I guess. And the underwater scenes in the winter of Hong Kong.
The Knockturnal: Do you think the water scenes were the most dangerous to perform? Or was there one that stuck out to you as being the most scary or dangerous?
NT: I guess not the most dangerous, but they were just so hard to handle. The last scene where I was fighting Ibrahim, the French guy in the water, inside of the submarine. It was the end of December in Hong Kong, and we were in the water for about 13 hours every day. And everyone was in scuba gear, because they were out of camera. But I was in that short-sleeved uniform, just in the tank. I was basically like this. I was just shaking. I couldn’t say the dialogue properly. My coordination room was out the window, because I was so cold. Day after day, we were just trying to grind the shots, but it was just so cold. Those were really tough.
The Knockturnal: In the film, there were a lot of scenes that reminded me of Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible. Are there any movies that you’ve seen that inspired your choreography?
NT: Many. There weren’t any I was trying to replicate. But because I’ve just been watching so many of these action movies, it’s very natural for me to try to take a step up from what I’ve seen before.
The Knockturnal: What motivates you to continue pushing the boundaries in your action filmmaking?
NT: First of all, I really love it, because I grew up watching these Hong Kong action movies. I think, like you said, the body language transcends. It breaks barriers and reaches the whole world. I think that is very, very important. In this stage of my life, it’s almost like I have this responsibility. I’m trying to sustain the identity of a Hong Kong action scene. I think it’s a very important part of our culture. I still do think that it is more superior than computer graphics as of today. Maybe not a few years down the line, but it is still the best way to do hand-to-hand combat on film and to express body language. I’m just hoping to reintroduce this type of action to the younger audience.
The Knockturnal: Are there any aspirations or goals that you still want to achieve in your career in the future?
NT: Oh definitely, I think there’s always room for improvement.
The Knockturnal: Lastly, is there anything else you want to share with your fans and the viewers about Customs Frontline?
NT: We always say, you’ve got to see this movie in the movie theater. I think this is really one of those where it’s just so different with the proper system, the ambience, the atmosphere, and with a big screen. Do watch it in the theater.
See Nicholas Tse in Customs Frontline in theaters now.