Nail House is a fun, goofy kung fu comedy. But don't let that fool you! Because it's also a sincere heartfelt movie with a story to tell.
As directors, Matt and I first met and bonded in film school over the incredible action movies coming out of Hong Kong - from the blood-soaked bullet operas of John Woo, to the laugh-a-minute slapstick farces of Stephen Chow. In the pre-YouTube days we would watch those action scenes off of bootleg DVDs for hours on Matt's region-free DVD player.
We also have a deep love and respect for the silent masters - filmmakers like Chaplin or Keaton who taught us that comedy is a powerful tool to disarm your audience and hit them with a powerful, heartfelt story. And what's more - physical comedy is an art form that transcends all language barriers.
Humor is a thread woven through everything we've done our entire careers as directors. For us, we believe it's the glue that holds all the other elements together. And it works - our action shorts have found and reached a global audience of millions.
While our goal with Nail House is to put some of the most hilariously creative and dynamic fight scenes on the screen (the kind that people will want to rip and put online with a title like "Best Fight Scenes Compilation (HD)!!"), we know that a movie lives or dies off the drama between its characters.
So Nail House is really a story about two brothers, orphaned at a young age, who must come together to save their family legacy. They'll rediscover their love for each other in the face of deadly adversity, and through the power of that love, overcome it.
(And they're gonna roundhouse kick a lot of faces in the process!)
Putting this project together, we've lost track of the times we've reduced ourselves to tears of laughter in the writer's room. It is, far and away, the story we are most excited to tell, and we can't wait to share it with you.
- Freddie Wong & Matt Arnold
Ricky is the head chef, head waiter, head busboy and head custodian of Mama Wong's Dumplings, a small dumpling restaurant that he and his estranged brother Danny inherited from their mom.
An anxious, stubborn mama’s boy, Ricky works himself to the bone to keep his mother’s restaurant (and legacy) alive. He’s never forgiven Danny for abandoning the family business to chase fame in the big city. But with danger knocking at his doorstep, this perpetual underdog may have no choice but to let his older brother back into his life...
For Ricky, we’re looking for a charming, boyish actor with strong comedic chops to bring humor and heart to this role. Additionally, impeccable physical comedy timing is a must - he has to feel like the underdog in every fight, and will have to resort to his agility and quick thinking to gain the upper hand.
Danny is an arrogant chef with the oily charm of a carnival huckster. As a boy, he chafed under the tutelage of his mother, and when she died, he left Ricky behind to take his cooking in bold new directions. But while Ricky believes that his brother has become the toast of the restaurant world, in reality, Danny has become a homeless, penniless, boxcar hobo.
Still too proud to admit he needs help, Danny lives his life from one grift to the next. When a vicious gangster from his past catches up to him, he promises to retrieve a precious heirloom from Mama Wong’s to pay off his debts - setting him on a collision course with the brother he left behind… and the guilt he still carries in his wounded soul.
Danny is the Hardy to Ricky’s Laurel, the Chris Farley to his David Spade - i.e. the classic "skinny guy / pudgy guy" comedy combo. We’re looking for a talented physical comedian who knows how to play the heel while still engendering the audience’s sympathy. Danny's fighting style is that of the confident older brother used to having the physical edge - brutish and more direct.
The hard assed, hard workin’ single mother of our two rowdy boys, Karen came to America with nothing but the change in her pocket and made a life for herself and her family one dumpling at a time. Though she died while her boys were still young, she watches over them from the afterlife, sending the occasional miracle their way and giving them both a swift kick in the ass when they need it most in their darkest hour.
Karen’s scenes bookend the film, but her presence is felt throughout. We see this as a fantastic and really fun cameo opportunity for a big name Asian actress.
Richmond Piedmont is the absurdly evil SVP of Corporate Real Estate for Big Box (an absurdly evil Amazon-esque shipping company). Pleasant, polite, and ruthless as all hell, Piedmont will stop at nothing to get Big Box’s new campus constructed on time and under budget - even if that means obliterating a beloved local dumpling shop and the two dimwit brothers inside...
Piedmont is our mustache twirling, scenery chewing bad guy, and presents a great stunt casting opportunity. A perfect role for a charming leading man to stretch his wings as a hammy, outrageous villain.
Drawn from the numerous non-descript family run Chinese restaurants that line the west coast, just outside major city centers and serving American-ized Chinese cuisine. A solid 3 ½ stars on Yelp (which means the food is amazing but the service is terrible).
For Ricky and Danny, the restaurant's more than just a place that serves dumplings...
...it’s their home.
Their mother Karen (40s) puts a stop to the chaos on her way out the door. She makes them solemnly swear that they’ll get along and look after the restaurant while she’s gone.
While Ricky tidies up the dining room, Danny makes a mess in the kitchen cooking up all sorts of unorthodox dumpling creations. The boys laugh and dream about running a food truck together when they grow up.
But their daydreams are cut short by a knock at the door. A grim faced police officer informs them that their mother has died in an accident.
There’s nowhere for the poop to go.
Enter Richmond Piedmont, a cutthroat VP so cutthroat he literally murders a dude in the meeting! Piedmont’s got a plan to solve the poop problem - he’s found the perfect adjacent lot for a new septic system.
"Tragedy is a close-up. Comedy is a long shot."
Buster Keaton, one of our cinema heroes, said that, and we believe it. Our comedy is cinematic. It's visual. We don't throw actors into a medium and have them riff for a while until the editor can piece together something funny.
Like Keaton, we strive to make our work play even without sound - in-camera jokes, background gags, and perfectly timed edits.
We choreograph our gags as carefully as action scenes. Nail House will have the pantomime energy and performance of a Chaplin or Jackie Chan flick, but with the modern cinematic comedy of Edgar Wright or Joseph Kahn.
The tone is decidedly over-the-top and deliberately humorous. The central image of the film - a lone dumpling shop resting atop a sliver of land in the middle of a construction pit chasm (that sprung up overnight, no less) is both silly as well as a serious obstacle for our characters.
So it's important to emphasize that we are not being zany just for its own sake. Instead, with Nail House, our primary focus as filmmakers is on telling a truthful, emotional, and dramatic story above all else, which serves as the foundation upon which we ground our action and humor.
We don't tell jokes with our stories. We tell stories with our jokes.
Back at Mama Wong’s, an exhausted Ricky, all grown up, scrambles about the run-down restaurant, trying to keep the lights on all by himself.
When one of his few regulars suggests he reach out to his brother for help paying the bills, Ricky barely contains his rage. Turns out, Danny abandoned his little bro and became a prestigious, award-winning chef, and they haven’t spoken in years…
He almost has a group of suckers roped in when he’s confronted by Don Chang, the head of the Mafiyakuziad, a fusion crime syndicate of Italian, Japanese, and Chinese mobsters. Danny owes the Don a lot of money, and he and his goons have come to collect…
A gonzo, bare-knuckle brawl breaks out in the boxcar!
Danny tries for a quick getaway - but is comically prevented every time he tries to leap out of the boxcar through the wide open door, first by the Don's goons, and then by perfectly timed passing trains!
Soon, Danny is overwhelmed. But just as Don Chang is about to kill him… the train passes a sign: Welcome to Fresno, home of Mama Wong's Dumplings!
Danny has an idea. He offers to pay back the Don with a priceless heirloom...
Begrudgingly, the Don gives him 24 hours to get that cat. Otherwise, he's a dead man…
For the fights in Nail House, it’s tremendously important that we impart a clear sense of space. Clear understanding of the geography pays off in spades as the audience anticipates the movements of a fight, allowing the space itself to convey suspense and drama.
We believe that proper lensing is one of the biggest things overlooked in modern action cinema. Often, the impulse is to go in tight and fill the frame with a flurry of physical movement. The end result is often nonsensical - motion without momentum, and ultimately confusing and unsatisfying to watch.
Instead, we take tremendous pride in the articulation and expression of our action scenes through precise and spartan camera work, allowing the choreography to be front and center.
Over the course of our careers, we've been incredibly fortunate to work closely with talented fight coordinators directing action shorts and television - folks like Philip Silvera (Daredevil, Deadpool 2, Terminator: Dark Fate), Eric Linden (The Punisher), and Yung Lee (Kingsman series, Solo: A Star Wars Story).
In that time, we've developed a keen understanding of how to move the camera and how to sell every punch, kick, and throw. After all, creative action is one of the cheapest ways to bring production value to a project.
We will bring our nearly ten years of experience of directing high-octane action cinema to make Nail House one of the most dynamic and inventively shot kung fu movies ever made.
Back at Mama Wong's, drowning in debt, a desperate Ricky prays to the family shrine, asking the spirit of his mother to help him save the restaurant...
Just then, there’s a knock at the door! Ricky flings it open and finds Piedmont on the other side. Piedmont offers to buy Mama Wong’s for an absurd amount of money, but Ricky refuses and kicks him out - this restaurant is all he has left of his family, and he’ll be dead in the ground before he sells!
With that he slams the door… and hears another knock. This time, it’s Danny, dressed to the nines, who strides in telling Ricky that he’s launching a fancy new restaurant - an homage to their mom - and he wants to use that gold cat as decoration.
Ricky says no way, and the two estranged brothers pick up right where they left off: with a bitter, angry argument.
But their bickering is cut short when Piedmont’s army of burly goon lawyers bust in, ready to forcibly extract a signature for the rights to the restaurant!
A huge fight ensues across the dining room and kitchen between Danny and Ricky versus the Big Box Legal Team. The brothers fight hard, but they’re outnumbered against a far stronger opponent.
The lawyers pin down Ricky, shove a pen into his hand, and start forcing him to sign his name on the dotted line...
Just then, Danny bursts out of the kitchen with a flaming propane tank, threatening to blow up the restaurant and kill everybody inside! The lawyers flee the scene.
With the immediate danger gone, Ricky tries to kick Danny out, but Danny fakes an injury and guilt trips Ricky into letting him stay the night.
Back at Big Box, Boxos admonishes Piedmont’s failure, and demotes the lawyers to the Fulfillment Department...
Boxos tells Piedmont that he’s next should he fail again as the lawyers are sealed alive into human size shipping boxes, their muffled screams echoing in Piedmont’s ears!
The next morning, Ricky attempts to kick Danny out. But as he opens the front door...
Across the pit, Piedmont informs Ricky that he’s commencing construction.That’ll make it mighty hard for Mama Wong’s to stay in business - and with no money coming in, soon Ricky will have no choice but to sell.
Meanwhile, Danny tries to steal the gold cat and sneak away, but Piedmont refuses to lower a bridge across the pit until the brothers agree to sell… at a fraction of his original offer, of course.
Furious, Ricky refuses yet again, and despite Danny’s pleading, resolves to wait Piedmont out. But with no running water or electricity in a restaurant full of spoiling food, Ricky and Danny must put aside their differences and work together to survive.
Danny uses his hobo knowledge to distill water from urine...
Danny uses his hobo knowledge to distill water from urine, allowing the boys to cook a paltry bowl of rice - their first meal together in years.
During the freezing night, Ricky offers to share his bed and blanket with his brother, just like when they were kids - prompting a raucous argument over who gets to be the "big spoon."
One of the primary goals of Nail House is to set the record straight on "spooning" - more specifically, what "big spoon" and "little spoon" means.
In the common (and totally incorrect) understanding, "little spoon" is the person being embraced from behind, while "big spoon" is the person doing the embracing.
Spooning, with the "big spoon" on the right
This is totally wrong.
When viewed from above, the bend in one's knees naturally forms the concave "bowl" of a spoon, while the upper body from the waist up is an obvious physical analogy to the spoon's handle. Therefore, the "big spoon" is actually the person on the left in the above drawing,
Physical spoons overlaid, clearly showing the person on the left as "big spoon"
As it is absurd to assume a big spoon would nest inside a little spoon, any reasonable person with a functioning brain will concede that the popular understanding of spooning is flipped, and that I, Freddie Wong, is correct.
If you disagree, I am more than happy to correct you. I can be reached at freddie@rocketjump.com, and I have set up Gmail so that any subject line with the word "Spooning" in it will immediately be prioritized to the top of my inbox.
As the two brothers come to rely on each other, their old grudges begin to melt away.
Overjoyed, the two of them scramble to collect the rainwater and taunt Piedmont from across the pit...
With nothing to eat, starvation sets in. After three days, a hunger-mad Ricky is ready to throw in the towel...
But before he can sign away the restaurant, Danny comes up with a crazy scheme. They tell Piedmont they’re ready to sign, and trick him into a face to face meeting.
But while Ricky hems and haws over the contract, Danny sneaks off and uses a giant magnet crane to steal a food truck and swing it over the gap to Mama Wong's!
When Piedmont catches wise, he sounds the alarm, and a wild hand-to-hand fight ensues between the brothers and Piedmont’s security!
We draw upon Jackie Chan's prop-based fighting style as every possible construction tool and implement is put to good use, including the giant magnet!
The fight builds to a rousing climax with an outrageous stunt: Ricky clings to the food truck for dear life as Danny pilots the crane to swing it across the chasm!
When the dust settles, Danny and Ricky have made it safely back to the restaurant with weeks of provisions from the food truck!
Nail House is full of innovative fight scenes, elaborate special effects, and spectacular stunts. We didn't write a claustrophobic siege movie, we wrote a one-location action movie that would feel as big as a Hollywood blockbuster.
But we don't need a blockbuster budget to accomplish the film because we have spent our entire careers going very big with very little. Our work has made us globally renowned for stretching the boundaries of what can be achieved with visual effects and spectacle on an indie budget.
For instance, our award-winning series Video Game High School is not a small, quirky high school drama - It’s wall-to-wall kung fu and gun fights, high-speed car car chases, full CG monsters, with a 180-gallon 10-story gasoline explosion as a cherry on top. We did seventeen TV-length episodes of this on the typical budget of one.
How do we pull it off? By using our years of extensive experience in visual effects and stunt work to put every penny on the screen.
Piedmont knows that if this siege drags out any longer, he’ll be demoted to the dreaded Fulfillment Department. So he bets it all on one desperate, final assault.
Piedmont drops a bridge across the chasm and orders his construction workers to storm Mama Wong’s and drag the brothers out by force - dead or alive!
Staring doom in the face, the brothers decide to go down doing what they love: making dumplings.
Using the facilities of the purloined food truck, the brothers take to the kitchen and cook up a batch of their mother’s delicious dumplings - and open Mama Wong’s for business, one last time.
What follows is the most intense kung fu food fight ever filmed as Danny and Ricky dive, flip, cook, and fling dumplings into the mouths of all the hostile construction workers!
This fight will simultaneously satisfy our audiences bloodlust for skull splitting action and make them super hungry!
Through the unstoppable power of authentic Chinese cuisine, the brothers win the hearts and minds of the construction workers, who lay down their arms and abandon Piedmont!
A devastated Piedmont reports his failure to Bill Boxos, who demotes Piedmont and relents to the brothers, allowing them to keep their restaurant! Danny and Ricky cheer in triumph!
But their joy is short-lived.
Meanwhile, Piedmont is given a last minute reprieve… by the arrival of Don Chang! Don Chang knows about his trouble with the Wong brothers, and offers to burn Mama Wong’s down… for a price.
While the Don’s goons tie the brothers up, Don Chang confronts Danny about the Gold Cat, and a furious Ricky discovers that Danny has been lying to him for years.
When they wake up, they’re with their mom… in the afterlife!
Growing up, my family was not overtly religious, but my parents carried with them many of the spiritual beliefs they had grown up with - ideas about the afterlife and karma.
One thing I wanted to show in this movie is both the deference to one's ancestors in the form of a familial shrine, as well as the ritual of burning paper money to send to your deceased loved
ones, and the fact that, as the kid of Chinese parents, you do it anyway even if you rolled your eyes a bit.
(Incidentally, I've often wondered about how rampant inflation in heaven must be given that we're burning literally millions of dollars in fake paper money at a time.)
Another lesson my parents burned into my brother and me was the need for the both of us to stick together, no matter what, and to never speak against your own family.
There's an unquestioning bond between brothers - something that Danny and Ricky lose and find again over the course of this film.
These spiritual beliefs in karmic causality and the cultural lessons I grew up with are woven deep into the core themes of this film, and expresses the kind of relationship I have with my own brother - the kind where you can be fighting like hell screaming and kicking at each other one minute, and be fully prepared to lay down your life for the other in the next.
Karen’s strong words humble the boys, and they tearfully reconcile, vowing to never again let grudges and hurt feelings come between them.
With that settled, Karen tells them to stop loafing and save their restaurant!
She clonks their heads together and the boys wake up back in Mama Wong’s!
Energized by the power of brotherly love, Ricky and Danny fight off Don Chang’s goons and confront Piedmont!
This fight is the grand finale of the film - Ricky and Danny versus multiple deadly armed assailants.
Ricky and Danny are like dancers in lock step with one another as the restaurant is torn to shreds in the ensuing fight! We're evoking John Woo levels of physical destruction and chaos for this final fight - copious amounts of eye candy in the form of fire, debris, dust, and sweat!
Working in tandem, they defeat Don Chang.
But Piedmont gets the drop on Danny with a sniper rifle! To save his brother’s life, Ricky drops the construction crane on Piedmonts head, defeating him once and for all…
Yet as Ricky and Danny survey the destruction, they find their Mom has sent them one last miracle: the food truck they stole has survived the inferno!
As the flames burn in the night and the stars twinkle above, Danny and Ricky resolve to start afresh - and fulfill their childhood dream of running a food truck...
Before we go, a quick personal note...
I’ve been incredibly encouraged by the public reception of recent films like Crazy Rich Asians, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Always Be My Maybe, and series like Kim’s Convenience. Growing up as an Asian American, I often had to look overseas, to the cinema of Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea, to find stories that spoke to my own cultural upbringing. Those films were usually tucked out of sight in the “Foreign” back shelves of my local Blockbuster, and I think most customers never even knew they were there.
And yet Asian cinema's influence on Hollywood is undeniable. From the constant remakes of Seven Samurai, to the influence of Godzilla, to the kung fu choreography that led to films like The Matrix - much of the DNA of Hollywood blockbusters is unmistakably Asian in origin. But the cultural context of those influences are usually stripped away and discarded.
While no doubt this is my internalized biases speaking, for the longest time, I believed that a movie like Nail House would require us to set it in, say, Taiwan, and for our characters to speak Mandarin Chinese.
Surely, I thought, a film that depicts and dramatizes so many of the lessons my parents taught my brother and me about spirituality, karma, and family duty would just be too weird in this country, with English speaking characters.
It’s only recently that I’ve reconsidered that assumption.
I honestly cannot emphasize how profound these past couple years have been on my outlook on the stories I want to tell. For the first time in the history of Western cinema, I think there’s an opportunity to finally wear my cultural influences on my sleeve and the possibility for a wide audience to find and embrace those stories.
In other words, for the first time, I don’t feel like my cultural upbringing belongs on back shelves with signs labeling them “Foreign” anymore.
Thank you again for taking the time to read through the presentation, and I hope you enjoy the script as much as we did writing it!
