Stuntworks # 28: Making of Kung Fu Western On Location in Mini Hollywood, Almeria Spain
A few years back me and and old friend Levan Doran, Came up with and idea to make a Kung-Fu Western called King Boot.
Concept
King Boot by Roberto Lopez is a hard-hitting Kung Fu Western that takes place after the Civil war. The backdrop of our story is about a martial arts Master that collects unwanted children after the war. Master Wu trains these children in order to create a killer army. His ambition far exceed simple robberies and cattle rustling, this is only to help fuel his ambitions and harden his troops. He plans to take over the US and then China. Our story begins when one of his top warriors defects to live a simple life of a husband and loving father to his newborn child. When his wife and child are taken, he will stop at nothing to get them back.
Levan and myself went out and did a recce or scout if you are American. We went out to Almaria Spain where there is a small town called Mini Hollywood. This town is famous for all the spaghetti western that where shot there in the 60's. Today is is a tourist attraction, you can go there with the family and see the old westerns town, gun fights and have a beer at the saloon. The most famous film made here were of Sergio Leone, famous classics like Once up a Time in the West, Good The Bad and the Ugly, Fist Full of Dollars, and For a few Dollars More. With that kind of pedigree and history there was no where else we wanted to shoot our film. Making a movie take a lot of money so our idea was to get our friends make a deal with the town and shot some footage to give our investors and idea what the film might look like.
King Boot Teaser from Stuntworks on Vimeo.
After few days of filming, 100 hours of editing and VFX (mostly erasing wire) our short teaser was finished. We took our teaser to the Cannes film market were we had a lot of interested, but like any business they wanted to know what finically sound actors names we had attracted to the cast for the film. We in the process of attaching a name now. This is not as easy as it sounds, you have to believe in your project and god favors the bold. With that wish us luck as we try and bring our labor of love to life.