Nailhouse - RocketJump

"nail house"

/nāl hous/
Noun

1. A private home whose owner refuses to vacate or sell, thereby impeding new real estate development. Originally from the Mandarin Chinese: 钉子户 (dīngzihù, lit. “nail house”)
‍

2. An action-comedy feature film about two brothers, a high-strung waiter and a fast-talking chef, who hole up in their late mother's beloved dumpling shop to stop a sinister tech executive and his army of goons from tearing it down for their corporate HQ.

a quick introduction...

Nail House has been our obsession for the past decade.

Every creative brainstorming conversation eventually morphs into spit balling more gags and stunts for Nail House. It’s our finest work and is the culmination of everything that we became world famous for - highly visual comedy, breakneck action, and jaw dropping stunts.
‍
So when it came time to decide on our next project after our SXSW debut We’re All Gonna Die, the answer was easy - Nail House or bust!

This film combines all our strengths as directors, filmmakers, and online content creators. It is a much anticipated return to the front of camera for me, Freddie Wong, and return to form for our signature blend of action and comedy.

We believe the team we’ve assembled is an unreal collection of talent and craftspeople uniquely qualified to create a truly great, all-timer action movie. We have the expertise, the talent, and the will.

Matt and I are taking the money we make off our podcast (one of the top on Patreon) and putting it directly into this project: $750,000 of the projected $3mm budget, and will earn back our money pari passu with other investors.

We’ve already shot the first action sequence, built the Chinese restaurant set, and begun pre-production. Let us show you what we’ve put together so far...

- Freddie Wong & Matt Arnold

Mama wong's dumpling house

Mama Wong's Dumpling House is drawn from the numerous non-descript family-run Chinese restaurants that line the west coast. A former bustling banquet hall in its glory days, the restaurant is now reduced to a thin stream of regulars and food delivery drivers.

It’s also where the majority of the film’s action takes place. Our iterative approach to action design requires the ability to ideate and rehearse in the actual physical space of the scene rather than creating action in vaguely defined stunt stage spaces. This was the way Charlie Chaplin and the Jackie Chan Stunt Team did it - choreography in real spaces.
‍
That’s why we’ve already built the restaurant set. Designed by Erik Louis Robert (The Sympathizer, The Haunting of Hill House, The Walking Dead) and built on RocketJump’s stage space, our stunt rehearsals will be living and evolving on the set as we fully explore the possibilities for restaurant-based hand-to-hand combat carnage.

Mama Wong’s Dumplings was a humble family-run Chinese restaurant and home to two kids: Danny, a wannabe rockstar chef, and Dicky, the ultimate mama’s boy and pint-sized front-of-house prodigy.

But when Mama Wong dies, the two are left to run the restaurant alone. They vow to stick together, no matter what...

But twenty years later, Dicky and Danny are all grown up and completely estranged.

Dicky tries to keep the restaurant afloat on his own, but is drowning in debt...

While Danny's become a penniless grifter, reduced to hawking haute cuisine to hobos.

And when a swaggering crime boss and a soulless tech company executive set their sights on the family’s prized Ming vase and the land under the restaurant...

The two brothers are forced back together to defend their family's legacy by any means necessary!

Isolated and trapped in a construction pit with no food or water, the brothers must fend off...

Killer lawyers!

Hunger!

Thirst!

...and an army of rats!

And in the end, these two idiots finally figure out that the best way to honor mom is to fight like hell...

...together!

On ACTION

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.

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 decade of experience directing high-octane action cinema to make Nail House one of the most dynamic and inventively shot martial arts movies ever made.

Early in the story, we are introduced to the adult Danny Wong pathetically pitching a restaurant idea to boxcar hobos. Don Chang and his goons catch up with him and a desperate close-quarters brawl ensues.

We’ve already shot this sequence as a means to test our action design workflow:

Brandon h. Lee - dicky wong

Dicky 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, Dicky 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 will have no choice but to let his older brother back into his life...

Dicky will be played by Brandon H. Lee (Cobra Kai), who brings earnest younger brother energy to the role, as well as sharp, powerful kicks owing to his achievements in the world of competitive Tae Kwon Do and his stuntman origins.

freddie wong - Danny Wong

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 Dicky behind to take his cooking in bold new directions. But while Dicky believes that his brother has become the toast of the restaurant world, in reality, Danny has become a homeless, penniless, boxcar hobo.

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 will be played by myself, Freddie Wong. To prepare for this role, I trained boxing intensively for eight months to prepare for an influencer boxing match that was eventually cancelled. Here’s a video about it.

meng'er zhang - karen wong

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 will be played by Meng’er Zhang (Shang Chi, The Witcher), who balances warmth with the stone cold power and fearsome energy of a stern Asian mom.

Kenneth Choi - don chang

Don Chang is a sly gangster whose taste for violence is only matched by his taste for haute cuisine... and his hatred of Danny Wong.As the Godfather of The Mafiyakuziad, an Asian Fusion Crime Syndicate, Don Chang put big money in Danny's latest restaurant and lost it all when bad reviews came pouring in. Now that Danny's skipped town, Don Chang and his boys have vowed to hunt down the runaway chef and make him pay - in more ways than one!

Don Chang is played by Kenneth Choi (911) who brings his signature charm, oddball humor, and a dash of menace to the role of gangster gourmand (we’ve worked with Ken for our Hulu series Dimension 404 and his sense of wry comic timing is unparalleled)

andy lister - richmond piedmont

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...

Richmond Piedmont will be played by veteran stuntman Andy Lister (name the superhero - he’s doubled him). His devilish charm and charisma is matched by his incredible talent as one of the most sought after stunt actors in the world.

freddie wong & matt arnold - Directors

Freddie and Matt are an award-winning film and television directing duo with over a decade of experience behind the camera directing action, comedy, explosions, and the occasional horse. They are the creators of the cult-classic series Video Game High School, and RocketJump: The Show and Dimension 404 on Hulu. Their work on the RocketJump YouTube channel (9 million subscribers) has garnered billions of views and a worldwide fanbase of millions.

Their debut feature film We’re All Gonna Die premiered in competition at SXSW 2024.

They are also part of Dungeons and Daddies, a Spotify Top 50 Comedy Podcast and a Top 10 podcast on Patreon, with over 93 million downloads, and having sold out 1000+ capacity venues in the United States and Europe across three live tours.

Yung Lee - action designer

Yung’s dedication to compelling storytelling and raw athleticism was honed through his mentorship by the late, revered Second Unit Director Brad Allan. This invaluable foundation has enabled Yung to collaborate closely with directors and performers, bringing their most ambitious visions to life.

From intricate hand-to-hand fights and high-octane speeder chases (as seen in Solo: A Star Wars Story) to orchestrating the grand-scale spectacle of a flying superhero’s combat in Superman (2025) and explosive set pieces for The King’s Man, his versatility shines.

Whether designing the intricate martial arts for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings or contributing to the visual blueprint as a stunt viz editor for Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Yung is dedicated to orchestrating dynamic, safe, and unforgettable action that consistently pushes creative boundaries and draws audiences deep into the heart of the fight.

Ashim Ahuja & Cherish chen - producers

Ashim, a 2018 Producing Fellow of Film Independent’s Project Involve, has spent over a decade developing and producing narrative, documentary, and branded content across film, tv, and digital platforms for companies including Disney, RocketJump, Lionsgate, Hulu, Mitú, and MACRO—most notably on the digital series GENTE-FIED, which was adapted into a Netflix show. As a VFX Executive Producer he has led projects for clients like Apple, A24, Universal, and HBOMax. Recent producing credits include We’re All Gonna Die (SXSW 2024), Handle With Care (dir. Matthew James Thompson), and Patel (dir. Ravi Kapoor), starring Utkarsh Ambudkar, Richa Moorjani, Kunal Nayyar, Dani Audi, and Kal Penn.
‍
Cherish is a Chinese American writer-producer based in Los Angeles, with notable credits including co-writing the SXSW 2024 Audience Award winner My Dead Friend Zoe, starring Sonequa Martin-Green, Natalie Morales, Ed Harris, and Morgan Freeman. She co-produced We’re All Gonna Die. As a comics writer, Cherish debuted in Image Comics' Radiant Black in 2021, followed by her solo miniseries Radiant Red in 2022. She is currently writing Marvel and Lucasfilm's Star Wars comic series DOCTOR APHRA: Chaos Agent.

Why this filM?

Before we go, a quick personal note...

I’ve been incredibly encouraged by the public reception of recent films like Everything Everywhere All at Once, Crazy Rich Asians, and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. 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 and John Wick - 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!

"nail house"

a quick introduction...

the setting

Mama wong's dumpling house

the story

On ACTION

The boxcar sequence

The Cast

Brandon h. Lee - dicky wong

freddie wong - Danny Wong

meng'er zhang - karen wong

Kenneth Choi - don chang

andy lister - richmond piedmont

the team

freddie wong & matt arnold - Directors

Yung Lee - action designer

Ashim Ahuja & Cherish chen - producers

Production timeline

budget

Why this filM?

Hey there - I see you're trying to view this on a phone or tablet. This presentation works best on a browser on a computer of some sort, so come back on one of those please!

-fw and ma

"nail house"

a quick introduction...

the setting

Mama wong's dumpling house

the story

On ACTION

The boxcar sequence

The Cast

Brandon h. Lee - dicky wong

freddie wong - Danny Wong

meng'er zhang - karen wong

Kenneth Choi - don chang

andy lister - richmond piedmont

the team

freddie wong & matt arnold - Directors

Yung Lee - action designer

Ashim Ahuja & Cherish chen - producers

Production timeline

budget

Why this filM?

Hey there - I see you're trying to view this on a phone or tablet. This presentation works best on a browser on a computer of some sort, so come back on one of those please!-fw and ma

Hey there - I see you're trying to view this on a phone or tablet. This presentation works best on a browser on a computer of some sort, so come back on one of those please!

-fw and ma