Leslie's Origin Story

Bruce Von Stiers

I'm not sure when origin stories became a thing. But it seems like many films and television shows are now having origin stories added to their legacies. From the X-Men to Batman to Planet of the Apes to how Jethro Gibbs became a NCIS legend, origin stories are big now.

There is a very action thriller short film that is now making its way around. It is an unusual film in that it is an origin story for a central character in a comedy film series.

The title of the film is Rise Of Chow. The film series that it is the origin story for? The Hangover.

Lee is a street magician in Las Vegas. The film opens with him performing a card trick for an audience on the street. As he is doing the trick there is a woman who is picking the pockets of the audience. Then she takes a backpack that had been sitting on the ground. The owner of the backpack gives chase but loses the woman.

The film moves on to Lee and the woman, Gabby. They're a team. He distracts a group of people, and she picks their pockets. But there are drugs in the backpack Gabby stole, and it belongs to a very dangerous man.

The bad guy and his crew find them. Lee is beaten and something tragic happens with Gabby.

From there the film takes on a martial arts type of vengeance and retribution.

Hymnson Chan plays Lee. He also wrote the screenplay and directed the film. His screen credits include appearing in The Rookie, Grey's Anatomy, Shameless and Curb Your Enthusiasm. He has also been a stunt performer in multiple films and television shows. That talent definitely came in handy in the fight scenes in the back half of this film.

Megan Le played Gabby. She had a role in the current hit film, Beekeeper. Besides being in films, Megan has appeared in television shows such as American Horror Stories, Big Sky and NCIS: Los Angeles.

Yoshi Sudarso is the head bad guy, Aki. He has over sixty screen credits, including Bullet Train and episodes of the Power Ranger series.

Chan had noted in a social media post that the majority of the cast and crew for the film were Asian American. A few of those cast members were Peter Jang, Tiger Sheu, Manny Shih, Bruce Inaba, Micaiah Chau and Sam Ly. Some of them also performed stunts for the film.

Also in the cast in minor roles were Lance Heruela and Allen Quindaigan. Rachel McDermott had a minor role and also stunt doubled for Megan Le.

Adrian Picardi was the cinematographer. He has been the director or cinematographer for over twenty films.

To be completely honest, I have never seen a complete Hangover film. I watched about ten minutes of, I think, the second one. So, I had no idea about the Leslie Chow character this film was based on. I had to ask someone I know, who'd seen all three Hangover films, who and what the character was. After describing a bit of the plot to her, she told me that this was a vastly different version of the Chow character than was portrayed in the film.

I liked Rise of Chow. A magician whose dreams are dashed and then he becomes a weapon of vengeance is a cool variation of an age-old theme of grief and retribution. The acting was decent, and the fighting and martial arts segments were well done.

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© 2024 Bruce E Von Stiers