KTV: KILLING TIME VIOLENTLY Director Jimmy Henderson On Making His ‘Unapologetic, Trashy and Charming’ Action Comedy
Cambodian cinemas are only a few days away from the release of Jimmy Henderson’s newest effort, KTV: Killing Time Violently. The film marks another successive entry in the action arena for director Jimmy Henderson, who has become more prominently known in the last several years for placing Cambodia squarely on the radar for a string of stylish beat ’em up thrillers.
This includes especially 2017’s Fantasia Festival crowdpleaser, Jailbreak, which became a banner success on Netflix before the streamer’s removal of the film from its catalogue back in May. The film, which featured actor and martial arts duo Jean-Paul Ly and Dara Our as members of tactical unit trapped in a prison and forced to fight for their lives when a prisoner transfer goes awry.
“Jailbreak definitely helped me to get my name out there and I am grateful for what it has done for the industry in Cambodia,” says Henderson, who with KTV, hopes to achieve something more accurately and closer to the direction he wants to take as a filmmaker.
“I am a bit stuck on trying to make films over here that have a universal appeal [and finding] that formula that works for both local and international audiences,” he says, “But I feel KTV could express more of what I wanted to say. Style-wise and thematically.”
Henderson reunites once again with Our for KTV: Killing Time Violently, after collaborating roughly for a decade. The two firstly popped up on radar with the regional release of a vigilante-style martial arts thriller titled Hanuman with Our in the lead role.
As Jailbreak and 2016’s The Forest Whispers followed, Our has also gone on to appear in The Prey, opposite mainland Chinese actor and martial artist Gu Sheng-wai in the lead role of a cop forced to fight and kill his way out of a vicious jungle prison overseen by a sadistic warden.
Our also contributed to fight choreography on Henderson’s 2022 action thriller, The Guardian, re-teaming him with Gu and also featuring Ly and Hong Kong SAR stars, Andy On and Eric Tsang. The movie opened during the pandemic and performed as China’s 6th highest-grossing crime flick in January 2022, and continues to enjoy the occasional screening at festivals the world over.
I asked Henderson about a possible release of The Guardian overseas. The film eventually screened at festivals in Cambodia, and that’s all Henderson knows of the film’s status given its principal executive producer is reportedly nowhere to be found.
“I lost contact with the main executive producer in China, so it will probably never be seen anywhere else,” he said.
![KTV - BTS 2 - Film Combat Syndicate](https://filmcombatsyndicate.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/wp-1665114588113-300x200.jpg)
Making KTV: Killing Time Violently, for the director, meant making a film that he deems won’t follow what he deliniates as “the current trend of cinema”, describing the film as “unapologetic, trashy and charming” and “a hell of a lot of fun” for fans of action and those of his prior work.
“It has a lot of dark humor and it’s pretty gory in some scenes. I am sure fans won’t be disappointed.”
Furthermore, Henderson’s participation meant one other caveat: Working with the people he was closest to, along with a cast and crew with whom he knew he could acclimate, including and especially Our.
“In recent years our life took a bit of a different path, especially during and after the pandemic, but we are still really close,” he says. “Dara is someone I can count on. He’s a really creative and smart guy, and also a huge role model for many stunt guys over here.”
Dara returns front and center in KTV: Killing Time Violently with a script by Henderson, along with co-scribe Kai Miller following The Prey and The Forest Whispers. Here, he plays an estranged father who must use his skills as a reformed bar and club brawler to find a way out and make it home in time for his son’s birthday, after getting caught up in a gang raid at a local club on his first day of work.
The role also required a bit of a transformation for Our, with Henderson tweaking the character a bit with a slightly more portly look as viewers of the trailer may have spotted. Henderson describes it as “a complete body transformation,” which bodes as total pivot from Our’s more lean and baby-faced look in Jailbreak.
The movie also rejoins Henderson and Our with Jailbreak cohort Phang Dara, along with Tharoth Sam who brings her sport-fighting background and screen prowess once again.
Henderson spoke highly of the two, additionally billing Dara’s performance, while a bit less involved in the action this time around, as a perfect counter to suit next to Our’s character for the film’s comedic “buddy movie” tone.
“[Phang] was great in the delivery of a lot of the dangerous stunts that he had to do. A normal actor would have needed a stunt double,” said Henderson.
The director also praised Sam for her versatility, adding “She’s one of the best female action actresses in South-East Asia, and it’s crazy that not so many people have realized that yet.”
Sam made her screen acting debut in Jailbreak, and is also a featured performer in Mark Bochsler’s Cambodian martial arts documentary, Surviving Bokator, which is still making its occasional rounds at festivals and screening events, its latest (as of this article) scheduled in Switzerland for July 2.
At least one key reason it appears that Henderson has become so pivotal in the action arena, is much ado with certain difficulties. Cambodia’s industrial presence cinema extends close to a century now, so the history is definitely there and chronicled for all to research and sift through. Still, like a lot of territories around the world – some worse than others – is scant when it comes to action film production. Sometimes the issues are more to do with money, other being…well, politics. Sometimes its both.
With Henderson finding his footing in the past decade, he’s become the go-to example of late in showcasing what Cambodian cinema is capable of. It’s produced quite the surge of interest as well following the industry’s regional decline roughly fifteen years earlier.
“It’s always extremely challenging making a film here, especially one with this kind of scope,” said Henderson. “I see a lot of local film-makers here have given up on the action genre because it’s just too difficult to execute. Too much hard work.”
Training and rehearsals took place in Our’s backyard while where the team built its own gym from scratch. Location and weather were certainly issues being dealt with as construction took place on the outskirts of the city during rainy season.
“A lot of the time, the road to it was flooded, and hard to reach. It was a bit intense,” he said.
![KTV - BTS 8 - Film Combat Syndicate](https://filmcombatsyndicate.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/wp-1665114689985-300x200.jpg)
Other hurdles were more to do with sickness and fever for a few members of the crew. Production was announced last August and took place in a windowless Karaoke club with twelve-to-fourteen hour-day shoots before finally wrapping principal photography in October.
“If someone got sick, pretty much all the rest of the crew got sick too,” he said. “I never experienced this kind of situation and I shot The Prey, deep in the jungle for thirty days!”
There’s a bit more to see amongst all this in a behind the scenes featurette which you can view below. Meanwhile plans for Jailbreak 2 remain active even as development remains on course following its post-2020 slog.
“We have been trying to get funding for a while now,” Henderson said of the hopeful sequel which lost its investors when the pandemic landed in 2020. “I hope KTV will help get the interest back in this project.”
Native New Yorker. Been writing for a long time now, and I enjoy what I do. Be nice to me!
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