STACK Jun #128

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042 JUNE 2015 JB Hi-Fi
visit FEATURE DVD&BD
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
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
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
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-
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
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
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.”
[Human trafficking] is the
third biggest crime in the
world, after guns and drugs
THE