![]() He liked the idea of shooting it on the streets of Hong Kong and that’s how it all began. I told him we could write the story together, I would write the script, and he would play the lead. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t been the lead in a feature yet and I wanted to be that guy that put him in one. He had an interesting face and an interesting voice and a little voice in my head said that if I ever get around to writing that idea and that character, this is the guy! A few months later, Jason happened to be in Los Angeles shooting FAST AND FURIOUS TOKYO DRIFT and I took him to lunch and told him that I thought he was a fabulous actor. He’s Eurasian – half British and half Chinese. We were having dinner and I kept looking across the table at him and I thought he had such an interesting face. He’s the crazy one in that film and I thought he was so excellent in it. Jason had been in Justin Lin’s BETTER LUCK TOMORROW. I happened to be in Hong Kong on a writing job and I met Jason Tobin. I always thought that if I ever turn to directing, I would pursue this idea and flush it out. ![]() This idea kept coming back to me over and over again. Whenever I was working on assignments, making a living as a screenwriter, I always yearned to be working on something more personal. How did you come up with this story?ĭP: I had an idea for a character in my head for a long time. WAMG: Let’s talk about your film JASMINE. When I was in college, that was when PULP FICTION came out, I also discovered the works of Lodge Kerrigan and Spike Lee and people like that. I was very much into filmmakers from that era in the 70s that inspired so many. I first saw RESERVOIR DOGS when I was living in St. Martin Scorsese’s films had a major impact. Who are some of your favorite filmmakers?ĭP: I was a big fan of Steven Spielberg’s work of course. WAMG: So it sounds like you were a big movie buff growing up in St. To have JASMINE play in my hometown, at a theater like The Tivoli where I saw so many films that inspired me, is like a bucket list moment for me. When you’re shooting a low-budget film and dealing with all the logistics and problems that are inevitable, like when it’s raining when it’s not supposed to be raining, you think to yourself that it will really be a miracle if this film ever plays on a big screen anywhere. It so happens that I have a film project that I have been developing for a while that I want to film here. I came back a year ago for my high school reunion and had a fantastic time and said to myself that I really need to come back to St. Louis for many years because my parents had both retired and moved to New Orleans. ![]() Louis and showing your first feature film?ĭP: There was a period of time where I didn’t come back to St. Louis and scout some locations for a movie that I’m planning on shooting here next year. I have a few days before my film screens at a film festival in Kansas, so I thought I’d come to St. We Are Movie Geeks: You’ll be here this weekend for a screening of your film JASMINE.ĭax Phelan: I’m already here. Interview conducted by Tom Stockman November 3rd, 2015 But the police remain unpersuaded, and Leonard realizes that the only recourse is to take matters into his own hands.ĭax Phelan, writer and director of JASMINE, took the time to speak with We Are Movie Geeks in advance of his film’s screening at The St. Suspecting that the man is his wife’s killer, Leonard investigates in the hope of linking him to the crime. ![]() That progress comes to a sudden halt, however, when Leonard crosses paths with a mysterious interloper (Byron Mann, THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS) while leaving flowers at the scene of his wife’s murder on the first anniversary of her death. The unsolved nature of Jasmine’s murder - and the Hong Kong police’s seeming indifference to the case - prevents Leonard from attaining true closure, but he appears to be slowly starting life anew. Determined to begin again, he searches for a new job, attends grief-support meetings, and reconnects with a woman from his past (Eugenia Yuan, REVENGE OF THE GREEN DRAGONS). Nearly a year after Jasmine’s death, Leonard finally returns home to Hong Kong. In this gripping psychological thriller, Leonard To (Jason Tobin, BETTER LUCK TOMORROW) struggles to come to terms with the unsolved murder of Jasmine (Grace Huang, THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS), his beloved wife.
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