RED SCORPION - 1988

Director: Joseph Zito
Cast: Dolph Lundgren, M. Emmet Walsh, Al White, T. P. McKenna, Carmen Argenziano, Brion James, Regopstaan.

DOLPH'S THOUGHTS:
Started production in 1986, and it was to be shot in South West Africa. At that time there was an apartheid policy still going on, so we had big political problems with the studio. They pulled the financing for the picture for a while, and we where stuck in Johannesburg for three months.

We felt very isolated because there was a war going on between Cuba and South Africa in Angola, and that was actually what the movie was all about. When we ended up into Northern Namibia finally shooting the picture, we where only about an hour away from the actual war scenes, real battles being fought, so we had armed guards on the set and so forth.

But apart from that, it was interesting because I got to co-star with a couple of giraffes, a hyena or two, a four-foot bushman, who only spoke the local "Click" language. He played my sidekick in the movie; he was about 85 years old. Interesting guy to deal with. The director had to have two translators. One who spoke English and Afrikaans,an other one who spoke Afrikaans that's the South Africa language and Click. So every direction he gave went through two people to this 85 year old, who usually ended up going left instead of right, so there was a lot of waiting on the set.

But it was a good shoot, and I've been back to South Africa a couple of times since. This was also my first time on foreign location for a movie.