Stranglehold – Director Interview

Gamer’s love guns, I can prove it. Those of us that are old enough (and quite a few who aren’t) also love tequila, usually these two do not go well together unless John Woo and Chow Yun Fat are involved, and they are indeed. We are of course speaking here of Stranglehold, the spiritual sequel to Woo’s acclaimed and well loved Hong Kong action movie, Hard Boiled. What follows is a little snippet from a neat interview that CVG conducted with Brian Eddy, the game’s director and executive producer.

CVG: What is John Woo’s input into the game? Can you take us through the process from inception to where you are now for a better idea of his role in Stranglehold?

Brian Eddy: John Woo has contributed a lot of art, animation and cinema direction, and has been very involved in the writing of the story. We are trying to recreate his vision in the game, so we regularly meet with him to review the latest version of Stranglehold and get his feedback, which is always very insightful. Even when it comes to areas that he is not directly very involved in, like gameplay design, he still often has a comment that adds to that aspect of the game, like how an animation could be done that would make a special move in the game more dramatic and impactful. Our process working with him has been very collaborative.

For instance, when we started working on the screenplay for the game we brainstormed different stories with him and came up with an outline we all really liked. Then we hired a couple of different writers to go through and create drafts that we reviewed with John Woo, making sure that the story worked with game-play and slowly perfecting what is now the final script. John Woo has apparently wanted to make a videogame for a long time, so he has been very involved in the development of Stranglehold.


CVG: How is Chow Yun Fat finding the whole process? Has he enjoyed being involved with a videogame and does he have plans to do more?

Brian Eddy: Well, while we can’t really speak for Chow Yun Fat or tell you what his plans may be, we can say that we have really enjoyed working with him and hope that we will have the opportunity to work with him again in the future. At every turn, he has been extremely helpful and gracious. Early on he actually agreed to having a crew fly out to Hong Kong where he lives and do a full body 3D scan of him, but while they were there, Chow Yun Fat also allowed us to take a series of impromptu pictures showing off his different facial poses so that when we do the cinematics in the game. Not only will we have his voice acting for Tequila, but we will be able to match the character in game exactly to the way Chow Yun Fat’s facial expression in real life would be for each emotion!

Gamer’s love guns, I can prove it. Those of us that are old enough (and quite a few who aren’t) also love tequila, usually these two do not go well together unless John Woo and Chow Yun Fat are involved, and they are indeed. We are of course speaking here of Stranglehold, the spiritual sequel to Woo’s acclaimed and well loved Hong Kong action movie, Hard Boiled. What follows is a little snippet from a neat interview that CVG conducted with Brian Eddy, the game’s director and executive producer.

CVG: What is John Woo’s input into the game? Can you take us through the process from inception to where you are now for a better idea of his role in Stranglehold?

Brian Eddy: John Woo has contributed a lot of art, animation and cinema direction, and has been very involved in the writing of the story. We are trying to recreate his vision in the game, so we regularly meet with him to review the latest version of Stranglehold and get his feedback, which is always very insightful. Even when it comes to areas that he is not directly very involved in, like gameplay design, he still often has a comment that adds to that aspect of the game, like how an animation could be done that would make a special move in the game more dramatic and impactful. Our process working with him has been very collaborative.

For instance, when we started working on the screenplay for the game we brainstormed different stories with him and came up with an outline we all really liked. Then we hired a couple of different writers to go through and create drafts that we reviewed with John Woo, making sure that the story worked with game-play and slowly perfecting what is now the final script. John Woo has apparently wanted to make a videogame for a long time, so he has been very involved in the development of Stranglehold.


CVG: How is Chow Yun Fat finding the whole process? Has he enjoyed being involved with a videogame and does he have plans to do more?

Brian Eddy: Well, while we can’t really speak for Chow Yun Fat or tell you what his plans may be, we can say that we have really enjoyed working with him and hope that we will have the opportunity to work with him again in the future. At every turn, he has been extremely helpful and gracious. Early on he actually agreed to having a crew fly out to Hong Kong where he lives and do a full body 3D scan of him, but while they were there, Chow Yun Fat also allowed us to take a series of impromptu pictures showing off his different facial poses so that when we do the cinematics in the game. Not only will we have his voice acting for Tequila, but we will be able to match the character in game exactly to the way Chow Yun Fat’s facial expression in real life would be for each emotion!