A few years ago, I played the main villain in a low budget feature
film. The climax of my role occurred when my character was stabbed
in the neck with a broken whiskey bottle. It happened like this...
My character, Song Gai, (it means 'Crazy Chicken' in Chinese)
is caught stealing money from his boss, a gang lord. His boss
is not impressed. As punishment, he presses Song Gai's hand onto
a hot grill burning it severely. After bandaging up his hand,
Song Gai looks for a way to pay back his boss the missing money.
He decides to shake down a wealthy Taiwanese boy who he suspects
is living alone in Vancouver, dumped off by his millionaire industrialist
parents.
Song Gai first meets the boy, Allen, when he rescues him from
being beat up by a local gang of ruffians at a video arcade. Afterwards,
Song Gai forces himself on Allen. He warns Allen that the gang
may still come after him. Allen needs protection. Song Gai gets
into the car with Allen and insists on seeing the boy safely home.
When they arrive at Allen's house, it turns out to be a beautiful
mansion. Song Gai, without any manners whatsoever, tramples through
the house looking in all the rooms. Allen maintains that his parents
are just out for the evening. But, the evidence overwhelmingly
points out that Allen is living alone. For example, only one bedroom
shows signs of occupancy. Song Gai settles down comfortable in
Allen's living room, proceeding to help himself to Allen's father's
ample liquor supplies. In particular, he bonds with a large Crown
Royal® whiskey bottle.
Knowing that there's no one there to stop him, Song Gai continues
popping his uppers (he has a supply of the pills) and drinking
whiskey while he enjoys watching Allen's satellite-dish enhanced
TV. After a while, he gets hungry and decides to order a free
meal from a restaurant that he regularly shakes down for protection
money. (What a class act, eh?) The delivery boy, Choi, arrives
soon afterwards. Allen desperately begs Choi to help him get rid
of Song Gai. Choi reluctantly agrees. Allen hatches up a plan
which the boys immediately carry out. Choi goes upstairs to use
Allen's bathroom, bringing Allen's cellular phone with him. From
there, Choi phones Allen's home number. Downstairs in the living
room, Allen picks up the phone and pretends he is talking to his
dad. Song Gai is suspicious. From a distance, he had watched the
interchange between Choi and Allen. Song Gai goes upstairs, and
kicks open the bathroom door. He grabs the phone from Choi and
yells into it, cursing vehemently at Allen. He then drags Choi
down the stairs, kicking him from time to time. At the bottom
of the stairs, Choi punches Song Gai's wounded hand. Angry with
the pain, Song Gai flings Choi into the main door and throws the
whiskey bottle at him. Glass flies everywhere.
Allen begs Song Gai not to hurt Choi. He tries to phone the police.
Song Gai viciously pushes Allen to the ground. Then, he goes after
Choi and starts to thrash the living daylights out of him. It
looks likely that Choi, currently 16 years of age, will not live
to see his 17th birthday. Desperately, Allen grabs the broken
whiskey bottle which now has jagged edges and threatens Song Gai
with it. Song Gai laughs. He turns away from Choi and advances
menacingly towards Allen. Allen backs away, frightened. From behind,
Choi desperately lunges at Song Gai who stumbles forward onto
his knees, his neck pressing hard into the broken bottle held
by Allen. The glass cuts an artery and Song Gai angrily lashes
out as the blood oozes forth in torrents from his wound. After
a few moments of struggling, Song Gai falls down at the foot of
the stairs and dies.
Pretty grim, huh? Well, here's how we filmed it. I won't describe
here the fights and the stunt work that it took to film the earlier
fighting sequence. That could take up its own article. Instead,
I'll focus on the actual death sequence.
A few days before the actual filming, two special effects makeup
people made a plaster cast of my neck. Once the plaster had hardened,
they took it off me and stretched some latex over the cast so
that it would take on the shape of my neck. When latex dries,
the consistency looks remarkably like skin. Finally, Les, one
of the special effects artists, painted the latex piece to match
my skin tone.
A few hours before we actually shot the scene, Les affixed the
makeup piece to my neck. Ahead of time, he had attached a thin
tube to the piece. The other end of the tube was, in turn, attached
to a pump filled with fake blood. To make it work, Les needed
to make an incision in the neck piece so that the tube could stick
out and fake blood would spurt out of the piece and onto me. For
some reason which was never made clear to me, Les couldn't make
the final cut until the piece was glued onto my neck. Picture
this scene: Les, jovially joking around with an audience that
had gathered around us, is using a sharp surgical instrument to
cut through a thin latex neck piece which is directly attached
to my neck. At this point, I was very glad that I had treated
Les with the utmost courtesy throughout the filming of this movie.
Les and his audience thoroughly enjoyed the operation. I gritted
my teeth and managed my best fake smile (Hey, I'm an actor, okay?)
Finally, after a tense half hour of cutting (tense for me), I
was ready. We rehearsed the dying sequence a few times. I fell
back onto the foot of the stairs, I swore vehemently at the boys,
lashed out with my right hand, then fell back once more, and passed
out from the loss of blood. Fine! Everything was ready for the
first take. The film rolled, I did my performance, the hand pump
worked, fake blood spilled out on cue. Only one problem, only
a tiny drop came out - hardly enough for a severed artery.
Then we tried another take. This time, more blood. However, it
shot out into the air like heavily shaken champagne. The blood
hit a few crew members. None of it actually dripped onto me, though.
"Too much pressure," the director yelled.
Take three. I did the scene again. At the critical moment, the
tube in my neck piece let out a farting noise but no blood. I
collapsed in a fit of laughter. The director screamed some more.
We needed to take a break while the crew sorted out the hand pump.
I asked someone to get me something from the snack tables because
I was attached to a pump and couldn't go there myself.
After the break, we tried again. This time, the blood worked -
sort of. It went in bits and stages. First a gush of blood. Then,
for a few seconds, nothing. Then, some more blood. It was like
the blood was coming out in waves. I guess it doesn't make sense
for arteries to have high and low tides. This time, the blood
bled through my shirt quite severely. So, I changed. Someone helped
wipe me clean while someone else brought out got one of the backup
shirts for me to wear. After two more bleedings and backup shirts,
we were done with that scene. The results were satisfactory but
not great. So, a few days later, we did it again.
This time, Les had experimented with a workable low-tech solution.
He bought a Super Soaker® (a big plastic toy water rifle)
and filled it with fake blood. A plastic tube was fitted over
the barrel of the Super Soaker®. The other end of this tube
was attached to my neck piece. On cue, Les fired the Super Soaker®
gently and the blood went up the tube and through my neck piece
gushing beautifully. We did several takes just in case. The director
was thrilled. She constantly demanded, "More blood, More
blood!" Easy for her to say. You have no idea how cold and
disgustingly sticky fake blood can get. However, it was all worth
it. The scene looked suitably gruesome in the finished movie.
There you have it, folks. In this era of computers and robotics,
sometimes a very low tech solution is still the most effective.
