 The Perfect Weapon is undeniably the ultimate Kempo film, but whatever happened to the sequel? We have Master Just Speakman with us today in the final of a four-part series analyzing how Kempo is represented in The Perfect Weapon. First we're going to wrap up how the essence of Kempo culminates in the final battle and then Mr. Speakman shares some insight with us on whatever happened to Perfect Weapon 2 and what it might have looked like. And you also won't believe what major Hollywood blog-quester almost became his second film. Let's talk about it. I think this is a pinnacle for every, or a staple for every Kempoist out there to have. It's like a requirement, almost, just to train in the art to see this film. I want to talk about this last thing because we've focused on different themes and different scenes as these episodes went on. This one in particular, the final battle is really interesting to me because you've now infiltrated the Warhouse and you're now facing off with Carrie Tagawa and James Hong and you are attacked and right off the bat, I believe you used Jamie Mase looks like and you do a standard Kempo defense and you pretty much take out Tagawa pretty fast. What were your thoughts leading up to this final confrontation? I always, I really pushed for trying to use Taming the Mace. So once again, good on you for recognizing your Kempo techniques. And then right after that, you know, there's a really, right before that, there's a really important thing that happens when Carrie Tagawa comes up and pulls a gun on me first and I'm stuck and James Hong tells him to move to the side to get me through the temple and the primary mandate of Kempo versus firearm, your empty hands and the attacker has a firearm, is to divert. So if I can just take the barrel of the gun and move it a little bit, now it's going to miss me even if you do fire. Now if at the same time, I also move in the opposite direction. So I double I increase the probability of not getting hit by the bullet by doing both move the barrel and move the target. Then your next concern is to be close enough to the person with the firearm to be able to control their next movement and it's almost counterintuitive that somebody comes at you with a gun or a knife and you want to get closer to them. You know, that just that first thought that really doesn't work. But then if you go into it, then you realize, well, if the guy's here to kill me and he's using a deadly weapon, you have to control and contain that distance. So he doesn't get a second chance to use that weapon on you again. You must choose an extremely aggressive response. And that is always going to be take your sight, take your breath or both. I'm never going to try to do something, divert the gun and then step back and then command your second time. You've got one time if you're lucky enough and fortunate enough to get out of the line of fire, you will not have that chance again. And what's fun for that for me as a viewer watching that is you dispose of Tanaka. I'm not sorry, you dispose of Tagawa so quickly that in the distance you see Tanaka showing up on the boat. Now we're expecting this big epic Kemple battle. And what I love is when he shows up and comes at you, it seems at first that the Kemple doesn't work against him. So this is what kind of like almost a step back. It's the first time in a movie where you're really the techniques that we've seen at this point, the perfect weapon isn't working against this foe who and you're hitting him hard and or at least it perceives as hard and just not affecting them. Just what was the approach to fighting the character like and what did you and Mr. Parker want to achieve with this scene? We needed to make it abundantly clear what you just highlighted, which is we wanted to make his character bigger than life. And the odds of me being able to use my Kemple on this guy diminish greatly because of his size and the skill and his general attitude on life. Funny thing, not so funny, but interesting thing that happened that first we're filming nights. So, you know, you show up on the set when the sun is going down so that you can get into makeup and get into war bulbs. So now the sun is set and you're going to shoot until the sun comes up. And those are difficult because yesterday you might have been shooting in the afternoon. So you get six hours off and I got to come back and do a fight scene for 12 hours. Those are the days are particularly taxing. But as you recall in that fight scene, there's a point where he's got the best to me and he grabs the back of my hair and he grabs the back of my belt and he pulls back and he throws me into a whole bunch of barrels. Okay. So the next day, just like a typical Kemple black belt class, when you get up the next day, you're sore because you got hit and you got pummeled and you get up and you're like, oh man, and you start stretching. I know there's a, we look in the mirror and there's a bruise that wasn't there last night. So after that fight scene the next morning, I get up and I'm doing that same, wow, I'm like, holy cow. That was a lot of work and I got hit and all that. And I kept getting up and the small of my back was so sore. Like I've never had it before. And I thought, God, that is really, you know, no matter what I do, the pain is still there. So I go to mirror and I turn around and I look behind me and there are five blue dots of bruises on the small of my back where his fingertips hit before he grabbed the belt to throw me. So that tells you how strong that guy's grip was. That's that wrestler's grip right there. Wrestler's grip, he was unbelievably strong. This guy was a monster. You know, and he would come into the West LA school before we did the movie. I had actually met him before, just walked in every now and then and hang out. And I think which we mentioned in one of the earlier chapters of this particular sequence, that, you know, the really the unsung heroes of a movie like this understand them. I mean, the stuff they go through is just, you know, putting on a gorilla suit, light yourself on fire and throw down to yourself down two layers of metal stairs. I mean, you know, the things they do are just incredible. And they just get up and that's themselves off and go, OK, what's next? And I want to kind of return back to the fight with Mr. Tanaka. There's a particular pattern I noticed watching this part of the movie in the first part in the flashback to beginning when young Jeff faces off with the football player that that hits his younger brother. There's a sequence of kicks that you deliver or that your character delivers. Jeff in the film delivers almost the exact same sequence of kicks to Professor Tanaka. And I find it interesting because at the beginning it worked too well. And now it's not working at all. Is there any sort of symbolism that you guys were trying to strive for this? Or is that just a happy accident? No, it played back into the motor. What we needed to do was throughout the movie and toward Tanaka's introduction into the film as continue to build him as this unmovable, unbeatable force, a killing machine on such a huge level that even though I was able to get some ground work covered with him, I wound up having to blow him up at the end of the fight scene because I couldn't do it. That was part of the logic of that escalation of how serious this guy is and what kind of trouble that I was in. And then the real point of all of that being taken to that level was at the very end of the movie when I bring James Hong's body slung over my shoulders and the fireman's carry to my dad and I lay him down and he kind of unrolls from the sheet I've got him wrapped in and he's still alive. And my dad can't believe it. And that I would spare his life, that I wouldn't take his life in to know he was responsible for taking the life of my friend. That's the moral equivalence because here's the question that plays out there in that scene and then in life for all of us, which is if you kill the killer, do you suddenly become that thing you used to fight against? And that's the human dilemma. Where is it appropriate to use deadly force and not? Jeff Sanders made the choice not to kill James Hong. And that's a theme that's introduced earlier in the film when your character is leaving town and you're going up to your Kemplemaster and he's describing the difference between the tiger and the dragon, which I want to kind of deep dive into just a little bit here, that the whole concept of the tiger being, you know, brute power, brute strength, earthly strength and then the dragon being also powerful but wise, he makes the point to saying that the dragon has a choice, but the tiger does not. And it's many times in the film we see your character rely on the tiger, rely on the tiger. So the tiger takes out the football player, does a lot of damage. You're resorting to the tiger, you know, with Professor Tanaka, it doesn't work. It was only when your character starts to embrace the dragon and thematically start thinking on a different level, thinking in an approach a different way that you start to have success in the film. And I think that's at the end of your talk about when you let James Hong live, that your character has made that final balance between the two halves. Yes, and exactly the writer Dave Wilson, who did an amazing job, I got to know him quite well, and exactly what you described is sort of how I spoke to him. You know, these are the iconic metaphors of the martial art world certainly of the Chinese and Japanese, which you laid out perfectly, which is the tiger is this master of the physical, the main, and the dragon really doesn't exist. It's an amalgam of different animal parts, the body of a serpent, the head of a jackal, the wings of a dragon, the talons of an eagle. And so really doesn't exist. It's a metaphysical collage of different ideas. And it's always above looking down at the tiger, and the tiger is always down below looking up at the dragon and that duality like that and the dragon always is holding this pearl, which is the pearl of wisdom, right? He's the guardian of the wisdom, the ethereal, the non-physical, and the tiger down here is a little bit of red in his mouth, but he's gold, and the serpent's body is completely red with some gold fins or flames along the back. So it is a perfect example of the yin-yang symbol. There's this with a little bit of that, and there's the opposite of that with a little bit and they are interdependent on one another. And so that brings us to the conclusion of what is your perspective? How do you look at life? What do you think is right and wrong? All those things play out in that symbology of the tiger and the dragon and how they work paradoxically in opposition to one another, but yet they both work in tandem to one another. There has to be this to be that. And we see this throughout the film. We see in Mako's apartment who's your mentor, he's got a dragon statue, and it's in the foreground as he's advising you. And we see that the ring, people ask about that ring all the time if it's a real ring, but I love the symbolism of the ring in the movies, that your character is always changing it, like you're always showing closest of it and you're touching it, but there's one moment in the end fight with Professor Chinaka where you're on the ground and he's like, he's putting a flower in his pocket, he's getting ready to deliver the killing blow, where your character touches the ring, but the way you did it and the framing and the camera shot actually looks like you're in the salutation stance. It's as if the tiger and dragon in that moment are finally coming together and that Jeff has found that balance. Right, when I began to get close to Ed Parker, started going to his house every week, which we did for three and a half years, I realized that I was in the presence of a very special person, a man who I refer to as the Einstein and Marshall Arts, because don't get me wrong, I'm very proud of what we've done. How far we've gone, where we're going to go, that's a home run, but we did not invent it. We were not the innovators of how to think this way, how to move this way, how to create solutions as Ed Parker was, so we took his spirit and his philosophy and his intellect and we went farther down that road, and I'm very thrilled that we did that, but let's not you know, mince words here. I'm not Ed Parker. I didn't create the kind of thinking and the presence that he had. He was the creator of one of the things that sets him apart is they can be with a group of really, really smart people and everybody looking at the same thing, but there's one person that sees something there that nobody else sees. They have the ability to see beyond the pragmatic, into the theoretical, and moving forward and that's what he was. He was a guy who would look at the ancient Chinese fighting techniques and figure out how to apply physics and principles and cause and effect relationships, moving your body through time and space at a particular angle to be able to deliver a maximum impact strike to a given target to create a reaction that you're aware of that you take advantage of that reaction before the person can recover, right? Think about how brilliant that is. That is truly groundbreaking and truly amazing and that's why he deserves all that credit. Those are the gifts he gave to us. I would like to end this on a little bit more of a hypothetical fun note. Every time we do an episode, our viewers really react to the FIO material and our topics together, but there's always a comment that comes up a lot. A lot of people will say is when are we going to see Perfect Weapon 2? I just thought it might be fun to kind of dip into that. If I understand correctly, at one point in time there was a sequel in development. Is there anything that you could tell us about that project or what it might have looked like? It was in theoretical concept back when Paramount was in that business, but what happened was so I had associated myself with a particular, I signed with a producer who made his name through Van Damme's first three movies. His name was Mark DeSalle. He was done with his Van Damme contract. The guy that wrote Van Damme's second movie, Kickboxer, he was one of the acting coaches at the studio I studied acting at for five years. So we became friends and then I found out he wrote that movie. I said, oh, I do this thing called Tempo. Why don't you come down and see it? And so he did. And after he saw it, he called DeSalle and he said, you got to come see this Tempo stuff because I've never seen anything like this. And it took him several times to try to, so finally Mark DeSalle showed up at the West Los Angeles Dojo and I did a demo for him. We signed a four picture deal and then he took that and went to Paramount. So he's tied with all four of those pictures. After we did the first one called The Perfect Weapon, they immediately went into what is Speakman's second movie going to be because we got them for three more for sure. So they had all those options. So they were moving together putting together a Perfect Weapon 2. What storyline they were adapting into that I don't know because I wasn't a part of that conversation. But before that developed further the next head of Paramount came in Brandon Tartacoff and a wonderful man. I met with him several times and he was so kind and the other people that were around him that I knew outside of Paramount said he was 200% in the Speakman camp going to make him one of the pillars of the new Paramount model that's coming out and then few months later he died of a tragic heart attack. So the first person that was running the studio was gone. Tartacoff came in, he's gone. Now the third person comes in, Sherri Lansing, who again was wonderful and very very kind to me but now I'm three levels away. So mostly if Paramount did another Speakman movie and it was successful no matter who did it, they're going to go give their credit to the first person that brought me to Paramount. And that's what nobody wants. So I can't go anywhere because Paramount owns all the options they paid for them so they don't want to do another movie. So they don't want to let you out to do another movie because what if I went to Warner Brothers and they had a huge hit? You know somebody's going to get in trouble for that. So they would rather sit you on a shelf because they say pay you the commiserate fees that they would have to to keep you tied to them and then when the time factor expires then you're out. And that's exactly what happened. I watched a previous interview with you from a couple years ago where you had discussed that you were at one point attached to a script that would eventually become the film speed. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? And if it had been produced for as a just to confirm how would Campbell have been implemented into a film like that? We were in the process of doing that. This goes back to what happens when somebody at the top loses their job or they pass away or whatever and then a whole new regime comes in. Especially with the big company. There is so much going on in a very little amount of time. So Paramount had me in a read a script that they owned. And I sat there in their office and read it in, you know, an hour or so. It was incredible. And I said, this is it. If this is the second Speakman movie after Perfect Weapon we're done. You know, we're at the top of the pile and we're going anywhere you want to go. So I had the biggest agency then I had the biggest lawyers then everybody's in. We accepted it. That's the one we're doing this movie for Speakman. Then in an interim area where Brendan Tarracoff was no longer there before Sherry Lansing came in there was a person temporarily running Paramount. He took that script and put it in what they call turnaround. Which is if you're a studio and there are the other three studios and you want to get rid of a project that you've invested in, you just put it up there and go, okay if you want the script you can have it for 200 or 400,000 whatever we got into it you can buy it. He did that and Warner Brothers picked it up in a heartbeat and it was the movie Speed, which was the movie they were developing for me. So we actually hired a writer and he was writing rewriting the script so that the direction of the bad guy would be you have to stop the bus at this location get out and go get a whatever. And that would put me out of the bus and I'd be into a fight scene and then I'd have to jump back on the bus and we were wrong. So it would be this milk run on the bus going from one fight scene to the next. And then when that whole so he put it in turnaround they picked it up made it with what's his name Keanu Reeves and it was a huge success and that was actually slated to be my second movie at Paramount and as ridiculous as that sounds that kind of thing happens really pretty regularly in Los Angeles and Hollywood but that's what ended my career at Paramount. So imagine that you know you come off a perfect weapon you work that hard you do such a good job selling totally committed right after the movie is finished you lose Ed Parker he dies of a heart attack at age 59 we were supposed to be together traveling all over the world the master and student though but I mean it was perfect right we're just out the gate and then I go through his death then we go through this travesty with the movie speed and there's no more movies for Speakman to Paramount but I'm still tied to the other producer that brought me in there the guy who started Jean-Claude Van Damme so he took his three options and went out and that's when we did Street Night 2nd movie I did for Warner Brothers if you were to make the perfect weapon to today in a hypothetical universe how would you implement 508 it in the particular scenes in the particular locations fight techniques any any elements that you would love to have seen come together for an ideal sequel I would put going to the ground by choice in a mass attack at the end when I'm fighting the last guy because then I don't have to make the conscious choice to go to the ground and put myself in a very vulnerable position no matter how good you are down there you're much more vulnerable on the ground than you are standing up when there's more than one person so I would try to implement it in that logical sequence and then I would put in how Temple 5.0 ground is different than Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or MMA what is it that we do down there that makes us stand out to the point where I can say to you and everybody listening in all good conscience what we did was we made a Kempo ground system we didn't take Kempo Karate and Jiu-Jitsu and say okay Monday and Wednesday we're doing Kempo Tuesday Thursday we're doing Jiu-Jitsu we put it together in one cohesive system so that was always my intent to make it a Kempo ground system not a extension of Jiu-Jitsu because who's got 20 years to throw on top of 20 years of Kempo to get that good at Jiu-Jitsu I'm a white belt in Jiu-Jitsu I went 4 years to Mr. Nathan's school I never got out of being a white belt I'm not going to die a white belt even though I wore white gear and a white belt I'm great with that you know I'm not there to get belts or to compete I'm there for information and then to figure out how to bring these two worlds together into one system and that's the world we live in today well I personally want to thank you so much for the work you've put into Kempo 5.0 the effort you've spent and the dedication and investment of time getting it out there I had a taste of it years ago I find a lot of value in it and I'm really happy to see how big the family has gotten and that it's actually prospering and I would especially like to thank you for your time to spend with us today and not just today but these other episodes where we talked about you know these hypotheticals and the symbolism of Kempo in the movies and so again I just can't express enough gratitude and is there any message like years to have who either seen the film or not seen the film and what does the name Perfect Weapon mean to you? The thing that I would like to express to you personally is my gratitude you have helped enormously with getting the word out of 5.0 and who we are and what we do and why we do it so you have my gratitude and my respect for doing that and just I would say to all people that respectfully question authority creates solutions instead of more problems as you move forward and this is what we have done in the 5.0 system and if those words resonate to you if you find value in them then please look at who we are you can go online study clandestinely from our online academy in which you go to jettspeakman.com go to the top right hand corner click on the 5.0 university and you will see the online academy you can just study online and get an idea of who we are and what we are and if you are of the same energetic value in how you think of the world then you have found a new home if you don't think that way this is not your place I am not after students I am after living a certain way for the rest of my life on planet earth and I am doing exactly that I am going to do that tomorrow well said and thank you so much sir I really appreciate everything and I really appreciate your time thank you sir so while we never got a sequel to one of the best martial arts films out there it is fun to explore what it could have looked like now I would like to thank master speakman for spending so much time with us and sharing his personal experiences on making the perfect weapon this was a four part series and you can find the links to the other three episodes in the description down below if you are hungry for more, master speakman has an entire catalog of films that he made that feature kempo as well as building and establishing his kempo 5.0 system which is one of the largest and most prominent branch-offs of ed parker's art so if you want to know all about kempo 5.0 you can find it all right here