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HEROES &VILLAINS
Marvel’s favourite antihero goes the way of the samurai in an epic eastern
tale of love, honour and revenge. Total Film visits the set of The Wolverine
to uncover the most sharp-edged superhero movie yet. WORDS RICHARD JORDAN
ugh Jackman is riddled
with bullet wounds.
His crisp black shirt is
caked in tar-like blood,
glistening as it dries in the
intense pacific sunshine.
“We’re shooting
an instance here where
Wolverine gets really pissed off,” chuckles the
Aussie A-lister, referring to his superhuman
alter-ego – a centuries-old mutant with sharp
claws, a sharper temper and, as evidenced by his
gore-stained attire, serious regenerative powers.
“A lot of his physicality is driven by rage and
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emotion, so sometimes the hard thing is
maintaining that level [of intensity]. But it’s a great
release for me. At the end of the day I feel like
I’ve been through hours of therapy!”
Total Film has travelled down under to meet
Jackman on the Sydney set of The Wolverine
– the sixth time (including his short but sweet
First Class cameo) the actor has played the
erstwhile X-Man on screen. Don’t call it a sequel,
though… “I’m really thrilled the studio called
it The Wolverine instead of Wolverine 2, because
we’re trying to set it up as a standalone picture,”
he explains. “Tonally, it’s different from the other
X-Men movies. It’s got massive action sequences,
as people would expect, and it’ll be great fun. But
it is a character-driven movie. It’s about a guy
completely out of his element, in this world that’s
foreign to him, and how he copes with that.”
Based on Chris Claremont’s fan-favourite
comic arc and set after the events of the original
X-Men trilogy (wisely relegating 2009’s lacklustre
prequel X-Men Origins: Wolverine to a distant
memory), The Wolverine sees our adamantiumclawed avenger going solo, journeying to the
Land of the Rising Sun to investigate the death of
a mysterious figure from his past. There, he falls
in love with local girl Mariko (Tao Okamoto) and
falls foul of her father – formidable crime lord >>
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THE WOLVERINE
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HEROES &VILLAINS
‘IT’S THE BADASS
WOLVERINE
I KNOW EVERYBODY
WANTS TO SEE’
Shingen (Hiroyuki Sanada) – as he gets caught up
in the dangerous underworld of the Yakuza…
“The graphic novel is so adventurous,”
enthuses director James Mangold (Cop Land,
3:10 To Yuma), a newbie to the X-universe who’s
relishing the opportunity to steer the franchise
in a completely new direction. “It plunges into
these ideas of destiny, honour and revenge – as
opposed to your standard superhero sagas,
which are generally about some gigantic villain
out to destroy the Earth, a city or a football
stadium. Japan’s such an exotic location, in the
sense that language and culture play such a huge
role in the movie. Usually you don’t find that at
all in these kinds of films. To be staking out our
own ground and be saying something unique
was really liberating for me.”
With the Japan-based location shoot
already in the can, The Wolverine’s international
cast and crew have returned to Australia for
the remainder of the film’s production. Not that
these antipodean surroundings will be any less
authentic… For today’s scene, the Chinese
Garden of Friendship on Sydney’s Darling
Harbour has been transformed into a distinctly
Japanese idyll, the painstaking production design
ranging from intricate, ornamental samurai
armour to a magnificent floating pagoda built in
the middle of the garden’s glimmering lake.
This is the setting for one of The Wolverine’s
thrilling early set-pieces: a traditional Japanese
funeral, attended by hundreds of black-suited
extras and Jackman’s snarling mutant, is
suddenly, violently interrupted by hordes of
heavily-tattooed, katana-wielding Yakuza
warriors. The sound of wind chimes tinkling
gently in the breeze is broken by brutal battle
cries and bloodcurdling screams, as our hero
rushes, claws out, to defend Mariko from her
would-be attackers. And, just as Jackman
promised, he looks really pissed off…
“I’ve seen playbacks of Hugh fighting
different characters in the movie and he’s no
joke! He’s probably in the best shape I’ve ever
seen him in all the X-Mens,” raves Jackman’s
co-star Will Yun Lee, himself no stranger
to big-screen action having traded blows with
James Bond in Die Another Day and Colin Farrell
in Total Recall. Lee is playing Kenuichio Harada,
Mariko’s half-brother who, in the comic universe
at least, is revealed as one of Wolverine’s most
iconic nemeses – the energy-manipulating
Silver Samurai (“I can’t really reveal who my
character is…” he teases, laughing nervously for
fear of letting something slip).
“The fighting style in this movie is very
Japanese-specific,” Lee continues. “[The movie’s
stunt team] 8711 is probably one of the best in
the business. In training they beat me up all day
and I could barely even walk home! Because
we’re dealing with weapons like swords and
Wolverine’s claws, even though they’re fake,
you’re still just a fraction away from getting hurt
or getting hit in the eye… I was like, ‘Oh my god,
I better not miss my timing!’”
If the mayhem that Total Film is currently
watching unfold (from the safety of the playback
monitor) is anything to go by, he’s not kidding…
Wolverine has gone full berserker: sending guys
even bigger than him crashing through shoji
walls and, at one point, disarming a knife-
GETTY, REX
HUGH JACKMAN
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THE WOLVERINE
Hard rain: (clockwise, from
above) Jackman gets soaked
on a night shoot; on location
in Tokyo; Jackman as Logan/
Wolverine; filming in Sydney’s
Chinese Garden of Friendship.
wielding clan member by stabbing him through
the bicep. Jackman may only be clutching rubber
stumps (the full adamantium blades will, in this
case, be added later using CG), but even the
thought of it makes us wince.
quick break in filming and
Jackman, drenched in sweat
and only mildly out of breath,
bounds over to give us a sneak
peek at the real deal: a pair
of full metal claws, redesigned
and streamlined to look – and feel – even more
deadly. “They’re moulded to my hands,” the
actor explains, “so they fit perfectly – I squeeze
my fists and they look like they’re coming
straight out.” They may be a movie prop but, as
the scars on his hands attest (“I keep scraping my
knuckles!” he admits), you wouldn’t want to be
on the wrong end of them… “I would never fight
hand-to-hand with these,” says Jackman,
recalling an incident on the first X-Men movie
where he accidentally stabbed Rebecca Romijn’s
stunt double through the arm during a fight
sequence. “So that’s why we have the stumps.”
With such frenetic slicing and dicing on
display, The Wolverine could well prove to be one
of the most hard-edged Marvel movies to date. Is
Mangold worried about any potential ratings
battles? “I don’t tend to think of that per se,” the
director muses. “ But I do want the movie to have
an intensity. I don’t want it to feel just like a CG
fest. I think so much of what’s badass about
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Wolverine is his physicality: the sweat, blood,
passion and anger. What we’re trying to do in
terms of the action is restore, or even for the first
time kind of explore his physicality on a more
visceral level. It’s more modelled on films like
The French Connection or The Outlaw Josey Wales or
the Bourne films – not a guy who might bring
down a 747 with a claw, but someone who seems
more real, more immediate, more believable.”
Such fighting talk will no doubt please those who
were disappointed when the project’s original
director Darren Aronofsky walked; any fears
that his departure would take with it the chance
of seeing a flinty, provocative Wolverine movie
seem to have been misplaced.
And, just like his roaming lead character,
Mangold immersed himself in Japanese culture
while prepping for the film, watching a host of
classic samurai films (“I’d be listing all of them!”
he laughs when Total Film quizzes him for a
specific influence) and getting to grips with all
aspects of eastern mythology…
“In terms of Japanese lore, the idea of the
ronin – the samurai without a purpose, without
a master – seemed to me to be the perfect
metaphor for who exactly Wolverine is when you
come upon him in this movie,” Mangold says.
“Kind of a hero without a reason for being a hero,
who’s lost his desire to protect, or even know
what he’s supposed to be protecting.”
So, a new kind of hero in a new kind
of superhero movie… Seems like The Wolverine
will be going a long way to make up for the
disappointment of Origins. “This is a story that
I know the fans love,” says Jackman. “It’s
the perfect vehicle to not only give a whole
different perspective to the world, but also to
understand the character. We’re all laying it
on the line. I feel like we have the opportunity
to deliver that badass, kick-ass Wolverine
I know everybody wants to see.” TF
The Wolverine opens on 25 July and will be
reviewed in a future issue.
NEW BLOOD
The friends and foes making
their big-screen debut…
Shingen Yashida
HIROYUKI SANADA
The Wolverine’s big bad, Shingen is the
leader of a powerful Yakuza clan and a highly skilled
swordsman. “There’s a big fight scene between
them,” reveals Sanada (Ringu, The Last Samurai).
“It’s the famous claws versus samurai swords.”
Mariko Yashida
TAO OKAMOTO
Japanese model Okamoto makes her
feature debut as Mariko, the daughter of Shingen who’s
torn between her love for Wolverine and her duty to
her father. She’s no pushover, either: “She does some
karate and knife-throwing…” promises Okamoto.
Silver Samurai
WILL YUN LEE
Lee plays Kenuichio Harada, the
illegitimate son of Shingen and a Japanese mutant
who’s able to charge his katana with ‘tachyon energy’,
turning it into a sort-of lightsaber that can cut through
almost anything. “He’s an important character in the
comics,” says Lee. “I hope I do him justice.”
Viper
SVETLANA
KHODCHENKOVA
This icy, eastern European
boasts the nifty
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power of teleportation. “Viper doesn’t really have
many people that she truly cares about,” explains
Russian actress Khodchenkova. “Most of them,
she just uses for her own purpose.”
Yukio
RILA FUKUSHIMA
A trained killer with ninja skills and
a rebellious spirit, Yukio is tasked with assassinating
Wolverine but instead becomes his ally, helping him
in his quest to bring down Shingen. “My character’s
very physical,” Fukushima confirms. “Yukio and
Wolverine have a lot in common. She really takes
care of him and he also cares about her.”
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