THE KUNG FU FILM-MAKER
Gareth Evans’ journey from Hirwaun to Hollywood
HE GREW up watching old Bruce Lee movies on VHS with his dad at their home in Hirwaun.
Later on he and his mates would make a short film about samurai which he shot on a handheld camera in the woods around Treforest.
From those humble beginnings, however, Gareth Evans went on to become one of the most sought-after names in Asian cinema, redefining the martial arts genre with acclaimed bone-crunching efforts such as The Raid.
And now Hollywood is also taking notice thanks to his latest project, Havoc, which, by bringing such stellar names as Tom Hardy and Oscar winner Forest Whitaker to Swansea and Cardiff has also helped shine the global spotlight on Wales itself.
Indeed fans’ efforts to snap selfies with the pair – along with Carlito’s Way and Boogie Nights actor Luis Guzman, who also stars – have become an internet sensation, generating news headlines from the UK to Australia.
But how did Evans go from being a young kung fu fan in Cynon Valley to the film director everyone wants to worth with?
“My dad’s weekend treat to me as a kid would be to get me the latest Jackie Chan or some old Bruce Lee classic from the video rental van when it came up our street – I couldn’t get enough,” Evans has revealed. “I met some Japanese students when I went to the University of Glamorgan to study media technology and we made a short film about samaurai warriors in the local woods. It wasn’t very good and we got some very strange looks.”
Graduating with a scriptwriting MA in 2006 he landed a gig directing a documentary about an Indonesian martial art called Pencak Silat at which point Evans realised where his future lay.
“I knew straightaway it would look spectacular in a movie so when I met Iko Uwais – whose Silat school I was filming at – we decided to make one together.”
A champion national fighter, Uwais became Evans’ secret weapon in bringing the discipline’s intense and complex style to the screen and the pair found great acclaim for their first celluloid effort, 2009’s Merantau.
“That was about a coming-of-age tradition they have in Sumatra where young boys travel to a big city like Jakarta to make a name for themselves,” said Evans.
“Except what we did was to mix in some more action-type elements by making the lead character turn protector to a young girl being hunted by European sex traffickers.”
After that his movie The Raid wowed audiences on the international festival circuit, with its distribution rights being bought by Sony Pictures after rough footage was unveiled at the Cannes Film Festival.
The tale of a special forces team taking on an impenetrable high-rise building full of the world’s worst thugs and killers, it was heavily influenced by western cinema classics like Die Hard and John Carpenter’s Assault On Precinct 13.
“I’ve always loved stories involving small groups of people going up against overwhelming odds and The Raid leaves the audience totally in the dark about which character is going to make it through to the end alive.”
Meanwhile the painfully realisticlooking stunts and fight scenes – in particular, one breathtaking moment where two actors crash through a window and plunge, still scrapping, onto a fire-escape far below – singled out Evans as one to watch.
A sequel to The Raid followed to similar rave reviews at which point Evans wrongfooted everyone by expressing a desire return to Wales from his adopted Jakarta to film a remake of Zulu, along with a biopic about legendary Welsh freedom fighter Owain Glyndŵr.
And, while he got his wish to return home, the nature of the resulting project couldn’t have been more different. 2018’s Apostle starred Michael Sheen a wild-eyed cult preacher called Prophet Malcolm who holds sway over a flock of disciples on a remote Welsh island in the early 1900s.
Largely shot on a set built at Margam Park in Neath Port Talbot, it drew comparisons with folk horror classic The Wicker Man with The Guardian calling the film “exhilarating to watch” and “a wild gory surprise”.
After that Evans turned his sights to an underworld of another kind – that of the criminal fraternity in Sky Atlantic’s Gangs of London, a series which showed he’d lost none of his flair for fight choreography.
He even managed to crowbar into the plot a group of terrifying Welsh travellers led by a bruising Mark Lewis Jones, whose standalone episode both thrilled and disgusted audiences – no small thanks to a now-notorious moment when a long, glistening earthworm is pulled from someone’s bullet wound.
But it’s Evans’ latest project, Havoc, which has seen his profile peak.
The story of a world-weary detective who has to risk all to rescue a politician’s son, it’s been causing quite stir online and in the tabloids – largely due to its star Tom Hardy popping up in places you wouldn’t expect during breaks in shooting.
The Bronson star has set pulses racing by turning up in such unlikely locations as Barry Island fun fair and M&S at Culverhouse Cross, causing people from far and wide to rush for a selfie with him.
Now said to be living in Caswell Bay with his Indonesian wife Maya and their daughter Sophie, 12, Evans would seem to have Hollywood in the palm of his hand – or, more likely, a headlock.
Whatever he does next will certainly be guaranteed to thrill.