STACK #128 Jun 2016

DVD & BD

FEATURE

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Dolph Lundgren is back in the human trafficking thriller SKINTRADE. STACK caught up with the action star on his recent trip to Australia. STOPPING TRAFFIC THE

D olph Lundgren ventured Down Under in April to attend the Supanova pop culture expo in Melbourne and Brisbane, where he says it’s always good to give something back to the fans. Although best known as Ivan Drago in Rocky IV , he reveals there is still a loyal following for his stint as He-Man in Masters of the Universe , as well as cult sci-fi thriller Dark Angel and the 1991 action flick Showdown in Little Tokyo . Lundgren is an old school man of action, one of many whose career was recently revived by The Expendables franchise. But Dolph says that prior to joining the line-up of veteran action stars for the Sylvester Stallone film, he took a self- imposed sabbatical from Hollywood to raise his two daughters. “I moved away from Hollywood to Europe to give my daughters an ordinary life,” he explains, “so for a while there I was off the radar. Then I get this call from Sly [adopting the Stallone tone], ‘Yo, Dolph, what are you doing? I got this

stopping showdown between Lundgren and co-star Tony Jaa, the pint-sized Muay Thai dynamo whose incredible martial arts skills can also be seen in the Ong Bak trilogy and Fast & Furious 7 . It was a fight sequence every bit as challenging as his clashes with Stallone and Jet Li, according to Dolph. “It was tough,” he laughs. “It took about two weeks to set up and then a week to shoot.” With its bone-crunching physical stunts, brutal violence and cast of action movie regulars, including Peter Weller, Ron Perlman, Michael

[Human trafficking] is the third biggest crime in the world, after guns and drugs

script…’ And that was The Expendables .” Following his recent appearance in The Expendables 3 , Lundgren headlines the tough and topical action-thriller Skin Trade , as a detective who heads to Bangkok to bring down a human trafficking network run by a Serbian mobster (played by Ron Perlman). Skin Trade is a passion project for the actor, who also serves as a producer and co-writer on the film, born out of his fierce stance against human trafficking and slavery; he remains actively involved with LA-based organisation CAST (Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking). “It’s the third biggest crime in the world, after guns and drugs,” he says. “I came up with the original idea almost seven years ago now, after I

Jai White and of course Lundgren himself, Skin Trade feels like the kind of movie Dolph was making back in his ‘80s heyday. So how does he feel action movies have changed over the decades since then? “Nowadays, with CGI and wire

read a report about human trafficking in the US. It was something I hadn’t seen in an action film at the time I wrote the script.” Lundgren had also planned to direct Skin Trade , but the logistics of shooting in Thailand saw him pass the baton to Ekachai Uekrongtham. “It made more sense to have a Thai director, who could talk to the crew and everything could be done more quickly,” he explains. Action fans will relish Skin Trade ’s show-

work, anyone can be an action star,” he offers. “But you still have movies like The Raid and guys like Tony Jaa that are doing it for real.”

• Skin Trade is out June 11

JUNE 2015 JB Hi-Fi www.jbhifi.com.au

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