The Wind Breezes On is going to be a groundbreaking effort for local mainstream cinema as Philippine’s Reality Entertainment and Hong Kong’s Sunson Group Limited pair up in an action movie to be helmed by Chinese-British director Sean Yim.
The action movie, which will start filming later this year in November, will feature Filipino ONE Championship Heavyweight Champion and mixed martial artist Brandon Vera and Chinese multi-talented mixed martial arts athlete and actor Dennis To.
The action movie is Brandon’s third feature film after the much-anticipated debut in Erik Matti’s Buy Bust, and Hawa, a zombie apocalypse movie that will start filming in June also under Reality Entertainment, being the second. Meanwhile, his co-star Dennis is best known for his role as the Wing Chun grandmaster Ip Man in the 2010 film The Legend Is Born—Ip Man. He also played minor roles in Ip Man (2008), and Bodyguards and Assassins (2009).
According to Reality Entertainment’s Dondon Monteverde, their agenda in coming up with this movie is “to bring out the Filipino talent abroad.”
“Basically Larry Ang and I have been friends for a long time and we’ve been planning a lot of stuff. Larry is a very good friend of Dennis and I can manage Brandon now so we put things together to come up with this project,” the film producer told Manila Standard Entertainment.
He added that by teaming up with someone as good as Dennis, he thinks it would be a good chance for the local cinema to come up with a very good Filipino product.
“With Brandon and Dennis, I think it’s going to be a great formula for a successful movie,” he said.
The Wind Breezes On (the film’s working title) is about two fathers whose worlds collide when Ko (Dennis To), a former bodyguard from Hong Kong and Brandon (Brandon Vera), an undercover cop from Manila team up in a mutual hunt for vengeance and salvation.
Monteverde revealed that it will be filmed in Manila and partly in Hong Kong.
“We’re going to film at least 40 percent of the film in Hong Kong and then 60 percent in Manila. It’s going to be a combination of the look of both cities. And since this is an action movie, we would be featuring, more or less, the rough side of Manila,” Monteverde stated.
For Brandon, him being cast in the action movie is already a great opportunity. He said never in his wildest dream that he would be given a chance to appear on the big screen doing what he loves most.
He also added that he personally wanted to incorporate Philippine martial arts in the movie given that a major part of the movie will be shot in the Philippines.
“We did incorporate some Filipino martial arts in Buy Bust and I want to do that in here especially that we’re going to be shooting here in the Philippines. I’m pretty sure we would be able to incorporate it somehow. I’m just following their lead but I will ask suggestively. It makes sense since we’re filming in the Philippines so there should be Philippine martial arts,” he told Manila Standard Entertainment in an interview.
Although Brandon has not read the script for the movie yet, he said Reality Entertainment has prepared an interesting film that would definitely train the spotlight on Filipino global talents while giving moviegoers a class A action film.
“It’s going to be a world release. So it’s going to be in English with Chinese subtitle. Hopefully the action will be too good that you wouldn’t have to worry about the subtitle too much,” he quipped.
Talking about his foray into movies, the Filipino American mixed martial artist further stated that he enjoys doing movies as much as he enjoys the sport that put his name on the list of great Filipino athletes.
“There are bunch of injuries in shooting for an action film, but the injury is worse on the sport side. So, it’s almost the same. That’s why every time I got hurt, ang iniisip ko lang, ayan gusto mo pang mag-action star pa ah,” he ended in jest.