Cung Le: Dragon Eyes
August 5th, 2011 by Mr. C
via FightSportTV @Youtube
I had missed CUNG LE’s meet & greet appearance at the AFTER DARK FILMS booth promoting his new project at the 2011 san diego comic con so this update serves as a chance to hype up his soon to be released action packed film called DRAGON EYES directed by John Hyams and produced by Joel Silver! The film is still in the editing phase and hopefully, will be playing at the theatres in early 2012! Warner Brothers is mentioned in the mix so maybe this would mean a bigger release to the masses! It stars Cung Le (his 1st ever starring role), Jean Cleade Van Damme, & Peter Weller (from Robocop). Cung Le, a vietnamese-american martial artist from San Jose, California is a former undefeated san da kickboxing champion and former middleweight champion in the MMA organization: STRIKE FORCE. LE has also fought in the prestigious K-1 Tournament with an impressive 3-0 record! He has been highly coveted in INSIDE KUNG FU and BLACK BELT MAGAZINES since the mid 1990’s! His martial arts background includes tae kwan do, sanshou (chinese grappling/kickboxing), & wrestling. Cung Le is one bad ass mofo with a heart of gold, real humble but confident at the same time! His signature move is a reverse scissor takedown which is executed so beautifully that it looks like art in motion! This takedown is not a finishing move of a fight but it does prove to be a demoralizing one for his opponents before he goes in for the kill! I am surprised that CL hasn’t gotten more play in movies but then again, kicking ass in real life and in the ring doesn’t always translate into motion pictures. The fight game often lends to brutal, direct, & powerful blows as opposed to the flowery, complicated, & giant moves of the ebb & flow variety native to onscreen fighting! LE is slowly but surely building up his fight film chops with the help of Yuen Woo Ping, Cory Yuen, & Donnie Yen! Cung Le has appeared in a few movies that you might have seen but did not know that he was lending his kickass hand & foot to the screen! Yuen Woo Ping’s, TRUE LEGEND & Teddy Chan’s, BODYGUARDS AND ASSASSINS come to mind! He always seems to play the villain role. I’m guessing pro fighters have that square jaw & rugged look that looks too bad ass not to play the antagonist! Not for nothing, but I love Donnie Yen for his martial expertise, style, charisma, and his films, but Cung Le would eat Donnie & his children for breakfast and still have room for pho, ‘fo sho’ !
DRAGON EYES is about a man in prison played by Cung Le who is being mentored in the fight game as well as in proper jailhouse survival etiquette played by a character no other than the smooth Belgian one himself, Jean Cleade Van Damme! With Le’s release, he attends to some house cleaning on the streets uniting two street gangs to rival forces against a crooked cop! Right on! Sounds like a ton of action & non stop fighting to me! The story sort of reads like Michael Jai White’s fan favorite movie, BLOOD AND BONE! If Dragon Eyes can come close or eclipse the action in that film then “beam me up Scotty, I control your body” ! I’m thinking if Cung Le is doing the fight choreography, stars in it, & has the old ghost of Jean Cleade by his side then it’s either going to be another cult status favorite for fans or it’s going to be a train wreck like NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER! Rest assured that if Cung Le is in the film some boombastic’ fighting is going to go down and go down hard! Also, look out for LE in Wong Kar Wai’s, THE GRANDMASTER and Rza’s, THE MAN WITH THE IRON FIST!
Check out Cung Le’s official website and twitter account!
http://cungle.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/CungLe185
Another prolific & talented martial artist in the same age range with a similiar background lurking around San Jose as well is ERNIE REYES JR! (his dad, Ernie Reyes SR is a martial arts legend!). What’s in the water in San Jose that breeds these martial art prodigies?
via TheMMAguide @Youtube (reporting from 2011 SD comic con)
via yeticket @Youtube (reporting from 2011 SD comic con)
Tags: cung le, dragon eyes, jean cleade van damme, john hyams, mixed martial arts
Posted in art, movies, mr. c | Comments (0)
