Reuben Langdon on Japanese action and how thought affects movement (Action Talks #23)

Reuben Langdon is an actor, stuntman, and motion capture performer known for his work on Devil May Cry and Avatar. We talk about his unique stunt training in Japan, founding Just Cause, and how thinking in different languages might change how we move. You can see his IMDB here: www.imdb.com/name/nm0486047/
Edited by Jay Huerto
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Timestamps:
0:00:48 Intro
0:01:09 What Reuben watched and played growing up
0:05:37 Moving to Japan
0:08:20 Martial arts training
0:10:21 Finding an action school in Japan
0:14:25 Learning stunts at the Toei Action Club
0:19:31 Training to help the Sentouin (stuntmen)
0:21:04 Repercussions for messing up as a sentouin
0:22:20 Working with Japan Action Club (JAC)
0:24:00 JAC Training Sessions
0:30:13 Relationship between action schools
0:31:14 Yasuaki Kurata's Action School
0:33:22 Going to Hong Kong
0:38:54 Moving back to America
0:41:25 Koichi Sakamoto's Movement and Filmmaking
0:42:57 Super Sentai Stunt Team and Power Rangers Stunt Team
0:44:04 Martial Law
0:46:41 How training in Japan helped
0:48:47 Western Style Fight Scenes
0:49:25 Sammo pushing him
0:50:27 A Stuntman's job in Hong Kong
0:53:59 Working with Jackie Chan
0:58:46 Jackie and Sammo
1:00:25 Reuben joining Jackie's Stunt Team
1:03:16 Working with Zero Gravity Stunt Team
1:04:33 Just Cause Productions
1:05:53 Getting in to motion capture
1:06:22 On authentic performances
1:07:58 Working with Japanese directors while performing in America
1:09:24 Trying to find what works for both JP and US culture
1:12:03 Midihari (contrast in movement)
1:13:58 Eric's experince with Midihari in mocap
1:15:15 Midihari in Chambara cinema
1:16:41 Triads
1:17:13 The swashbuckling genre
1:17:37 Japanese wrestling and Kaiju
1:18:21 The different camps in Hong Kong cinema
1:19:18 Avatar
1:22:56 Stunt teams in America
1:23:25 Six figures? or do what you want?
1:24:42 Virtual production
1:27:17 Thinking in Japanese
1:29:25 Eric learning Cantonese
1:31:39 Going into a different mode when working with Japanese performers
1:33:56 The awareness of fight scenes to an audience
1:36:00 Hong Kong style boom in America in the late 90s
1:38:04 Korean action cinema
1:43:07 A new fight choreo style from Japan
1:45:50 Koichi Sakamoto's influence on his life

[@AlphaProto]

Reuben's fascination with Hong Kong cinema, and Japanese animation, is very similar to mine.

[@theonlymegumegu]

i certainly feel a connection to his journey as well. i think it was certainly particular time periods when all those things were so adjacent to each other and the Fandom wasn't necessarily so specific, so often if you found one you were bound to get exposure to others and just end up on the smorgasbord ride of east Asian visual entertainment. i think also some of them homage each other very much (ranma 1/2 to kung fu cinema certainly comes to mind)

[@jamyangpelsang3099]

The real life Dante from DMC. Fascinating hearing about the differences between Japanese and American body language. That much more excited to finally seeing the Japanese episode on the movement language series.

[@thebrownbaldy]

This is awesome to hear from this guy. Definitely a legend for us nerds.

[@bateshell2]

I wish he was back as Ken in SF6, and hopefully we get a new DMC with him in it.

[@colonylaser4860]

It's criminal you don't have higher view count. Your pieces are always the best and most interesting!

[@NintendanGX]

Despite the generational gap between us, Reuben's story of how he got into anime was similar to mine. Seeing shows he liked, and learning that they were shows from Japan, something called "anime".
I remember finishing Dragon Ball Z and wishing I could see more cartoons like it, that were more bold and daring with their mature content. Then years later, around late 2006, I got into Naruto, watched it on Jetix, bought the first DVD the following year to watch it uncensored, saw it was in the "anime" section at my local HMV, and through the trailers of Manga Entertainment's other licensed shows, I learned that the types of shows I've been looking for all this time were anime. I wasn't very active on the internet until 2009 when we could afford it, so I had no way of knowing, really. I'd narrow down the types of anime I'd prefer during my teenage years (certainly better ones than the typical money-making shounen machines), but before 2007, I had no clue how to narrow it down.

[@xibanyae]

as always, so many interesting stories and insights!!!!

[@lamaisonducinemaasiatique4516]

The film Reuben mentions in which Kenya Sawada invested in (and acted in) is most likely Bruce Law's Extreme Crisis. A pretty cool action film which suffered from bad timing regarding its release.
Thanks for the interview!