Future world for Tekken

From: www.shreveporttimes.com

Filmmakers came to Shreveport in search of 2029 and found it at the decades-old Louisiana State Fair Grounds. "Tekken," a futuristic martial arts movie based on the popular fighter video game series, built many of its sets there.

On March 25, six days before the production wrapped, thousands of seats inside the 54-year-old Hirsch Memorial Coliseum held blank-faced mannequins. A Shinto-roofed fighting stage for a fighters' tournament anchored the arena's floor. A glass-fronted, hard-angled skybox - a permanent addition to Hirsch - rose to meet the high roof.

"You can't find a lot of soundstages that are this unencumbered," said production designer Nathan Amondson. Asked if the bridges to the stage would traverse a pit of alligators, he quipped, "I pushed but all I got was the lava."

Amondson has also overseen the construction of an elaborate Tekken City, an austere, orderly barrack that houses Tekken Corporation and its fighters. (It was converted from an exhibition hall.)

Surrounding it is the outdoor Anvil, an apocalyptic, back alley network of corrugated metal roofed buildings. There's an old bicycle shop with rusty frames on the wall. Weary refugees walk up and down the dirt streets.

"At first I was very leery that we would find 2029 St. Louis," Amondson said. But the Fair Grounds have proved to be a good backdrop for an elaborate network of sets meant to represent a postapocalyptic version of the Missouri city. Shooting outdoors also has its production advantages. "There is a different feeling to them, the way that wind whips through the stage."

Director Dwight H. Little - whose diverse credits include episodes of "Prison Break" and "24" and the movies "Murder at 1600" and "Free Willy 2" - knows he must please two audiences with the adaptation: video game super-fans and moviegoers who don't know "Tekken" from "Titanic."

"In the end, we want it to work as a stand-alone movie," he said. Like the game, it will include ever-transforming fighting stages and a plethora of fighters: human, genetically engineered and otherwise. "We have a lot of martial arts, a lot of variety. We feel like we can replicate the feel of the game."

Helping craft the action are stunt coordinator Eric Norris and fight coordinator Cyril Raffaelli.

To make some of the gravity-defying stunts look real, the production has hired men who practice parkour. For the urban sport, a city's architecture is viewed as an obstacle course. Participants often scale walls, move acrobatically from stairwell to stairr well, and jump long distances from roof to roof. (Parkour videos have become an online video phenomenon on YouTube.com.)

For one scene, Norris and Raffaelli prepped their stuntmen for a 20-foot leap.

"They look at me like I'm crazy when I try to put a wire on them," Norris said. "They are unbelievable. I wouldn't do it. If I had to make the jump I'd get to about the 10-foot mark."

That's high praise from a pro who's logged more than 20 years in the business. His stunt work has been showcased in "Mission: Impossible III" and "Prison Break." He's also worked in northwest Louisiana on "The Great Debaters," "Premonition," "The Guardian" and the currently filming "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt."

Despite a long resume, Norris is perhaps best known for working nine seasons on "Walker, Texas Ranger" with his famous father, Chuck Norris.

"I'm proud of who my dad is and what he's accomplished," Norris said. The youngest son doesn't mind talking about his dad, but he's unlikely to be giving away any family secrets. "There may be a few skeletons that are not going to come out."

For him, working on "Tekken" in Shreveport feels no different than working on a soundstage in California. He said local crews he's worked with are pretty cohesive.

"Most of them have worked here before, and it's been a great experience," he said. "I don't see it that doing a show in Louisiana is any different than anywhere else I've worked."