J.J. Perry has had quite a career and life thus far. Long before he made his feature directorial debut, Day Shift, he had decades of experience shooting second-unit, performing stunts, and stunt coordinating all over the world. On top of those filmmaking experiences, he had a career in the Army and competed in martial-arts competitions.
In other words, not the average modern director’s life.
So when Perry gets behind the camera to direct, as he does again with The Killer’s Game, he brings a unique perspective to his action films. The action, of course, is clean and crisp even at its most chaotic. Recently, Perry spoke with Immersive about how his experiences in military and martial arts shaped him as a proficient director of action movies.
J.J., how are you?
Perry: What’s up, Action Jack? What are you doing, baby boy?
[Laughs] I’m good, sir. Thank you for contributing a quote to our Justin Yu story.
I love that kid.
He’s great. Let’s begin with Miyamoto Musashi’s “The Book of Five Rings,” which appears in The Killer’s Game. I imagine for good reason. What does that book mean to you?
So it’s been in every movie I’ve done. It was in Day Shift on a shelf. It was in Killer’s Game and it’s also in Afterburn, the movie I just finished. It’s a book that I read a bunch when I was in the Army. It’s one of the books that I just would read over and over again. I really relate to Miyamoto Musashi. Sometimes you have to go into your cave and master yourself again. So, that’s why I put that book in there. It had such an impact on me when I was young.
What other books had an impact?
Because I was in the Army, I used to read a lot of military type books. So, Sun Tzu, “Book of Five Rings,” and read a little Nietzsche as well. But those books, mostly strategy, strategy, strategy.
So when you look at a guy like Dave Bautista, what strategy do you think best suits him for action?
Listen, getting the movie was a big win. Dave Bautista was winning the ultimate mega lottery. Everybody needs some Dave Bautista in their life. He’s such a kind, gentle, generous human that’s just a master, but he’s an apex human being. He’s six foot four. He’s a master of Jiu Jitsu. He’s a wrestler. He fought in some MMA. There’s a lot of actors that can fight in movies but can’t really. Our job is the smoke and mirrors.
Dave Bautista is dangerous. You’re getting a starting pitcher. When you think about guys that come from the WWE, that’s a live show. They’re doing a live performance in front of 60,000 people. There’s no take two or three. So, his ability to retain choreography is second to none. I don’t have to hide a double. I just put the camera where it belongs and then the action becomes the star of what we’re doing.
By the way, excellent apartment fight scene.
Thanks, man. I love the Goyang crew.
How’d that set-piece begin and evolve in your mind?
I’ll tell you, I was stationed in Korea when I was in the army. I have a love affair with all things Korean. I liked and wanted to put in Boy George, I’m sorry, I’m stuck in the ‘80s. I remember in 1987 in Korea, hearing people sing that song, Korean Brothers singing that song. So, I had to put that in my movie.
The Goyang style was very Taekwondo-esque. It was a lot of TKD and I wanted them to look like K-Pop stars. We always do the same thing. Justin Yu, Troy Robinson, and Felix Betancourt are my action team. They’ve been with me forever, especially Justin and Troy. Felix has been on now for three or four years, but Justin, Troy and I have been working together for 12 years, 36 films all over the planet, physically displacing human beings in cars for a living, having a great time doing it.
So in pre-production we do what’s called a stunt-vis, so that’s where we all collaborate and come up with the gags. Like, the leg folding or getting her neck cut on the glass, setting up the bomb, ambushing her with the yin yang knife. Once we come up with the gags we want to do, Justin and Troy and Felix and I go to the production designer. We have a meeting and talk about designing the set that will accommodate the action.
Directing movies is a team sport. You have 36 departments. You can’t have every department as an individual walking around doing their own thing. You’ll fail miserably. I’ve been on so many of those productions as a stunt coordinator and as a second-unit director; you have to learn how to pull everybody together and share your vision.
In doing that, when you do a stunt-vis, you inform the wardrobe department, “Oh, we’re going to tear his shirt and we throw ’em this way.” There’s going to be a wire gag, so we need to cut the back of the thing. It’s going to punch here, so makeup needs a shiner. All of the departments watch the stunt-vis and it informs them. When we show up on the set, we know what’s going to happen. There’s a little room for creative license when we get there if we want to change a little bit. But for the most part, when I make a plan, I kind of stick to it.
You were such a well-oiled machine by the time you finally directed your first full-length movie, Day Shift, but what lessons did you learn from that movie?
Two lessons. Budgeting my time a little bit better with the comedy and the drama and the character development. Take your time a little bit more. And so, for 32 years I was an action guy before I got Day Shift, I had done pre-production and production I’d never done. So, you’re never in post. I didn’t know what that was, all kinds of surprises in post that you don’t know it’s coming. You’re like, wait a minute, what just happened? I didn’t always understand what was coming in the post. Then I just knew what to do. You can’t learn something until you actually do it. Every experience you have is going to inform you. Not having ever been in post before, it caught me on my heels a little bit, but now I’m ready for it.
You had experience making movies in Hong Kong. They work at quick speeds, often the crew does each other’s jobs, from what I’ve read. Making movies in Hong Kong, how’d those experiences shape you as a director?
So I worked in Hong Kong in the ’90s a few times. There’s no safety standard. There were no safety standards back then. Corey Yuen, who passed away, I worked on a movie with him called Enter the Eagles. What he said to me at the very end, “You’re going to do a wee-oo stunt.” And I was like, “What? He goes, “After the stunt, wee oo wee oo wee ooo.” He started laughing and went, “No, don’t worry. I have three Russian boys that look just like you. We can double.” So in saying that, everyone knows everybody’s job, but when they shoot, they’re very prepared. They also don’t shoot anything they don’t need. It’s very efficient.
I run three cameras on my set. I’m always running three cameras, but I’m shooting things that I’m going to need. I’m not wandering around spraying and praying. You’ll never hear me say let’s fix it in post. I’ll never say that, because I learned how to do this job in the ’90s when you had to solve things without visual effects. I think that makes for responsible filmmaking.
Look at Chad Stahelski and Dave Leitch. We’re from the same homeroom class. We’re from class of ‘90 in the stunt business. We learned under some of these masters that did everything for real. And when you start like that, integrating visual effects and having a great VFX supervisor is mando now, but being able to solve things in camera, for me, is so much fun.
I think pretty soon they’ll do deep fake car chases, but I’ll be long gone by then, brother. I’ll be out fishing. I’ll check it out in the theater. I’ll be like, “Oh yeah, those are deep fakes, man.” I love crashing cars. That’s what I signed up for. Smashing things up, blowing stuff up. That’s what I signed up for.
Do you think we’ll get to that point of deep fake action sooner than we fear?
I think it’s coming. I think the checks in the mail, bro. I think for sure. But it’s okay. By the time it does hit pay dirt, I’ll be out of here, brother.
From that stunt community, how do those relationships grow over time? Scott Adkins or Marko Zaror, you’ve worked with them previously, so how far do you go back with some of the people on The Killer’s Game?
Scott Atkins and shot I met in Bulgaria back in 2003. I go back with Marko Zaror to the movie The Rundown. I was doubling Sean Williams Scott, while Marko was one of the doubles for Dwayne Johnson back then. Daniel Bernhardt, we did Bloodsport three and Sri Lanka in ’97, and and Chad Stahelski were bad guys in that movie. We were characters. We fought him in a tournament.
So these are people that I’ve just worked with and once you have that stunt team, men and women, when we’re risking our lives together, you’re risking injury all the time. Sometimes you risk your life, but when you’re doing things like that, it creates a bond. And that’s why I love this business. When I got out of the army, I thought, what am I going to do?
But it’s like the army, the only difference is it pays a lot better and everything’s scripted. And when you get shot, strawberry jelly comes out. So, of course I’m going to take that job. We shot this movie in 42 days. It was hardcore. Thank God for my action team and thank God for my crew, my amazing crew, my director of photography, my whole team.
But what are you going to do? What you do is you call all your homies and everybody comes that has your back. You have all these soldiers that come with you that are your friends and that are going to do whatever it takes to get it done. I was just really blessed to have such a badass crew and such a badass cast.
Any moments of particular wish-fulfillment on The Killer’s Game? Something you’ve always wanted to see in an action scene but you finally got to do it?
The Goyang thing and the Marco thing I’d had in my back pocket, the style, and Dave being a lone operator. When I was in the Army, we worked on the platoon and squad level, you’re never alone. You’re never working as a loan operator. But I challenged ourselves, like, listen, if you’re a lone operator, you can’t just leave something at six o’clock. You have to set traps. We call it a six o’clock ambush or something that’s saving. When they’re coming in behind you because you’re dealing with what’s in front of you, you don’t want to get bushwhack from behind. There were a lot of booby traps. Some of them didn’t make the film, but most of them did.
Interesting hearing about how your military background inspires you as a director. I also would like to hear about your martial arts background. Anything about the mindset and skills that art instills that you bring with you on a set?
I started doing martial arts when I was eight. It was 1975. You’re learning to kick and punch when you’re learning to read and write. It’s in my DNA. I had 168 amateur fights all over the world. It also helped me with not being nervous in the moment of truth, I fought so much that fighting isn’t… I don’t get emotional. It’s like, okay, cool. It’s another day at the office. And that lends itself. I feel like when I joined the army, I was already a soldier from martial arts. The army made me a man.
When I got into the movie business, I had this discipline to get up and train because I was on the Army team, the armed forces team. I was a junior national champion, but I also brought that military mindset, like discipline, hard work. I understand the sacrifice of the individual for the overall benefit of the team was one of the biggest lessons I learned from the army.
Look, what we do is hard work, but it’s never going to be as hard as the things that you’ll do in the military. So once you get past that, once you’ve gotten out of the military at 23 and you look at your life ahead of you, it’s like okay, nothing will ever be quite that hard again. That’s why I loved stunts because you’re doing calculated risk, but it’s calculated. Stuff you do in the army isn’t really calculated. It’s just a risk.
I imagine now on a film set when shit’s hitting the fan, you know how to keep your cool.
At least I’m good at pretending. That’s the one, my brother, that’s the one. Just say some rowdy shit and look confident and you’ll be fine.
Are you going to write a memoir, J.J.? When are you going to write about your experiences?
As soon as I learn to read and write, I’m going to get right on it.
The Killer’s Game is now playing in theaters.
