[Interview] – Kicking back with Hitman and Assassin Star Colin Squire.

The mission of the Fighting Spirit Festival is a simple and inspirational one: “Through martial arts cinema we aim to entertain and inspire people, promote martial arts culture, and support those who have chosen it as a career.” The event unites people with a passion in martial arts, be it cinematic, through practice or both, making connections and creating opportunities. For Colin Squire the opportunity came about to take his love of action movies to a new and unexpected plain by featuring in an action film. ‘Combat Zone‘ started off as a masterclass exercise in action choreography turned into an eight minute short competition after it’s premier at the 2022 Fighting Spirit event. Having discovered a taste for being an action actor Colin is making waves with his latest project. ‘Hitman and the Assassin‘, co-stars Singaporean action star Jonathan Cheong as rival killers settling a dispute the only way they now how. We sat down with Colin to discuss his journey into the world of action cinema

Colin Squire: It started off with Mark Strange. Over Covid he put an ad out on Facebook to see if anyone wanted to do any online training, so of course I jumped at the chance. Within minutes of the post going up I messaged him and we ended up doing about four or five lessons. He asked what I wanted to get out of this and I said I wanted to improve my kicking, and learn a bit about choreography. Not to do it. I had no intention of actually going out and doing it. I just wanted to know how it was done and if there were any little secrets on how to do it well. Over Zoom he put a fight sequence together where say he punched and I would react over the call, and then he sliced it together. After that was done he said I’ve got a couple of projects coming up, would you be interested in coming along, having a go on set, see how you get on and then go from there? Well I jumped at the chance. We did some work together and later he said I’m gonna put a screen fighting course together. There were four of us who were signed up just to do choreography including Craig David Dowssett who played Winnie the Pooh in ‘Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey’ but he was busy on another project so it ended up just being me Daniel [Daniel Davey Thomas] and Ryan [Ryan Noire] And that kind of led to Mark having to rearrange everything and so he said why don’t we we just make a short film, and that’s how that came about.

Rehearsal Kick for Combat Zone

Cine Bijou: That’s great. As kids we all watched action films featuring icons like Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, then later Scott Adkins, and I guess we all in some way wanted to be like them. Was it a dream on some level to fight in an action film?

Colin Squire: I saw ‘Kickboxer’ when I was probably five, maybe six years old, and since then I was hooked on the movie side of it. I then started martial arts, and it was obviously totally different to what I’d seen in films. I remember one of the differences during my first sparring match. I did a sidekick and kept my leg up. I got into trouble for that and was told you don’t hold it you’ve got to be quick and hit. Of course I was just going by what I’d seen in the films. That and Van Damme was what led to my obsession with movies. I bought ‘Drunken Master’ on VHS at a car boot sale. Watching it I remember thinking that was beyond anything I’d seen. I was mesmerised by the movements and I watched it until I couldn’t watch it anymore. I never I never had any intention of trying to get into films, that only came about through the opportunity with Mark.

Cine Bijou: Amazing. Let’s talk about ‘Combat Zone’ which premiered at the 2022 Fighting Spirit Film Festival as part of the short film competition. It was well received there but went on to do well around the world. Has that been for you?

Colin Squire: Absolutely crazy! I don’t think any of us imagined it would do this well . Like I said it was never intended to be a short film, it was through Mark and him bringing Matt [Matt Routledge] in and that it ended up being what it is. I remember I’d flown to New York where ‘Combat Zone’ was shown at the Urban Action Showcase and I remember seeing Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson, Amy Johnston, and Michael Jai White in the audience all sat in the front row watching it. We were in this massive theatre and I felt like a fraud wondering to myself ‘how did I end up in this environment with these legends watching this tiny five minute short film that’s now branched out beyond what it was originally intended. I don’t think any of us expected it to do as well as it has and then also to be shown at various festivals. It’s reached beyond our expectations.

Combat Zone poster by crike99art

Cine Bijou: Wow! So what’s been the feedback from people who’ve seen the film?

Colin Squire: Everyone’s been overwhelmed with what we achieved and how it was achieved.
Ryan’s an actor, myself and Danny have never really never done anything like this before: it was a learning curve for us all. It was quite a shock for us but for Ryan it’s going to boost his career a little bit more which was kind of what we expected it to be.

Cine Bijou: For those who haven’t seen ‘Combat Zone’, the basic concept is you all wake up in a gym and the three of you fight it out. Whoever’s left standing … I’m not gonna give away the outcome [laughs].

Colin Squire: Please don’t give away the ending [Laughs]. It was a simple concept. Mark [Strange]] choreographed everything in this gym where Mark used to train. There was no plan as to what to do so we walked in and we just came up with ideas. It was basically ‘why don’t we do this and then do that, and then get the machinery in to work and then jump from here. The gym was still in use at the time and there was me, Daniel and Ryan following around like lost puppies. It was bizarre.

Cine Bijou: It does sound like you’ve had a lot of fun. You and I are trained martial artists: we’ve done sparring, conditioning training and generally we work hard in the dojo. But how does it compare to film fighting bearing in mind there has to be an element of control yet you still have to make contact and show some exertion?.

Colin Squire: It was horrendous to be honest. We filmed it over two days and there was no stopping. In sparring there’s no stopping apart from working out tactics. With this we were repeating moves over and over again until Matt [director Matt Routledge] was happy with what we’d done. I’ll be honest I suffered after it due to the relentlessness of having to repeat the same moves over and over again. I wasn’t always good at sparring, I normally get beaten up [laughs] and it would hurt a lot, but this was a different sort of pain from all the repetition especially doing a sidekick. There’s a scene in ‘Combat Zone’ where I do a jumping sidekick, and I had to do that quite a few times because I kept doing it wrong which was all part of the learning curve of getting the timings right and everything. After I had done that ten or more times I remember thinking, “Bloody Hell! How do they manage to do all that?” You don’t realise how much work goes into it.

Let the games begin – Welcome to the Combat Zone

Cine Bijou: I suppose one of the difficult things about fight choreography is you’ve got to telegraph a bit more, swing your legs wider. All of this goes against our training of economy of motion, and close quarters fighting. I suppose making that adjustment took its toll.

Colin Squire: I mentioned earlier when I was younger I used to extend my kicks and hold them because that’s what I thought you had to do. For me the transition wasn’t quite as hard because I just thought that’s how it was done. Take ‘Kickboxer’ for example when he [Jean Claude Van Damme] exaggerated his kicks – that’s what I was teaching myself at home how to do. It wasn’t hard to adapt but it was still a lot of work. I kept being told I have to do it bigger, make it bigger, extend the punches more. They wanted to catch everything, the expressions on my face which was again something else I found hard to do, as well as the moves you had to constantly work on were doing facial movements and stuff linked to our reactions.

Cine Bijou: Okay, so before we go on to talk about the Hitman assassin I just want to ask about how the success of ‘Combat Zone’ – has sort of ignited a little bit of a passion in you to be an actor. I know you’re working on another film. Is this like a side passion for your are you now thinking this is something you’d like to pursue?

Colin Squire: It’s definitely something I’d love to do more of though I get the feeling I’m maybe a bit too old to start it now. There’s a lot more training to do, but there’s definitely opportunities out there I’m going to be taking. I didn’t realise how accessible stunt schools and training programmes were. There’s definitely more courses going on, and lots of people who live near me, I didn’t realise were into filmmaking. Once they saw the things I was doing they reached out to me, now there’s a few things in the pipeline; I might be working on a horror film which is quite cool – that’s going to be later in the year. There’s stuff out there to go for, I’m definitely training more though I’m not saying it’s going to be a full time job. The two shorts I’ve done have gone beyond my expectations of just learning, so yes I’d definitely like to do more.

Cine Bijou: Well that Segway’s nicely to ‘The Hitman and The Assassin’, which you are co-starring in with Jonathan Cheong who let’s face it IS the Singapore action industry. Presumably you two met at the Fighting Spirit Film Festival. How did the idea for this project come about?

Poster art by crike99art

Colin: Yes I did meet him at Fighting Spirit and he knew we did interviews on ‘Movie Rankers’ and he said “if you’re interested I’d like to come on and have a chat with you to talk about how our industry’s different over there [Singapore].” I said that I would love to do that so I set up a Zoom call – the interview’s about an hour long though we were speaking for about three hours. He said he was coming over for Fighting Spirit next year and that if I was interested in shooting something to let him know. I didn’t even hesitate, and instantly said yes. He said he would come up with an idea and then I was to find somewhere to shoot it. He said he would contact me once he got the idea up and running and let me know what he needed. He got in touch and asked me to find a barn, which I was able to do through my day job. I got in touch with a friend of mine, who I hadn’t spoken to in years, who does theatre acting to see if he was interested in working on this. And that was it. Jonathan hadn’t even met Will [The Director] up to that point, only briefly a couple of times. Why asked him if he wanted to work on the project and he jumped at the chance.

Jonathan and I trained for a couple of days, and developed the choreography . Then all four of us met on the set of the film for the first time. Again that was quite a learning curve, how to mesh everyone that sort of stuff. I’m very proud of that one as the first time I acted, probably not the best thing anyone’s seen [nervous laugh] but you’re learning on the job with this one. I’m really proud of what we did and I think Jonathan’s happy with it too. Ben and Wille were absolutely excellent as well, so I guess we’ll just see how that goes.

Cine Bijou: Well we don’t want to ruin it because the film’s going to premiere at the Forbidden Worlds Film Festival in their first ever short film competition. Without giving too much away, what can we kind of expect from the film?

Colin Squire: It’s quite a simple plot really: a hitman and an assassin are after the same target. I think it’s kind of a mutual respect between the two so it won’t be a straight up I’ll kill you, you kill me outcome. There is the usual ‘Kill! Kill’ standoff going on but there’s also a bit of a twist with this one. The action is quite fun, it’s short and quite hearty. It’s only an eight minute film with a few jokes thrown in so there’s a bit of comedy in there as well.

Jonathan & Colin square off

Cine Bijou: Sounds great. So let’s wrap with one final question that has been on my mind since this was announced – What’s the difference between a hitman and an assassin? It’s a question that my wife asked me. And I felt I gave her the right answer but would like your thoughts.

Colin: You know what I think it is? One dresses nicer than the other. [Laughs} I don’t as I am not in that industry but I guess one’s more tactical or the other.

Cine Bijou: Good one. The answer I gave my wife when we pondered this question was that an assassin is someone who, say, shoots the President of the United States whereas a hitman is someone who shoots… well, me!

Colin Squire: That’s a good example, yes, I think that’s right.

Cine Bijou: You’re no stranger to having a film be screened in competition, with ‘Combat Zone’ at the 2022 Fighting Spirit Film Festival. With ‘Hitman and the Assassin’ heading to Bristol’s Forbidden World’s Film Festival is there any nervous anticipation about this one?

Colin Squire: I’m more nervous about this one, because obviously I’ve done a bit more acting in this one and it’s the first time for me. We’re going up against a lot of people more experienced in filmmaking. We have no budget and we all just met on set and has to learn a lot just those two days of shooting. So it’d be nice to see how it compares to those with more experience. Any criticism or feedback we get would be great.

UPDATE! Since this interview was conducted ‘Hitman and the Assassin has won various awards at other competitions including Best Action at the International Gold Awards, and for Best Film at the Paris Film Awards. You can Colin and Jonathan battle on the big screen in competition at this year’s Fighting Spirit Film Festival at Hackney Picturehouse. Visit the Fighting Spirit website for more details.

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