It’s not just Death Race that boasts a cameo from legend David Carradine. According to star Jason Statham, speaking to RT this week ahead of the UK release of Death Race, the action superstar let slip that Carradine would appear in Crank 2: High Voltage as well.
“We’ve got David Carradine in the film,” Statham told RT, “and he plays a character called ‘Puon Dong,’ who’s this really mad Asian Mafia guy.”
Carradine’s star has been on the ascendant once again since his appearance as the titular assassination victim in Quentin Tarantino‘s double dose of revenge, Kill Bill. But from the sounds of things, this role pays homage to his classic role in TV show Kung Fu, in which he played Shaolin priest Kwai Chang Caine.
Crank, which revolved around an injection administered to Statham’s character Chev Chelios that meant he had to keep his heart rate up to avoid death, was one of the craziest and most inventive action flicks of recent years. But its ending was fairly definite. Not so, says Statham, who explains the film’s plot. “Chev Chelios is running around with a plastic heart. They’re farming him for his organs, because he’s the man that cannot die, so they give him an ‘Aviacore,’ a totally artificial heart, and he’s trying to find his heart.
For the actor, the shoot was as entertaining as the script. “Neveldine and Taylor are the nuttiest directors I’ve ever worked for, and I’d repeatedly work for them time and time again, because they’re just so out there.
“Whatever the first one was, this one’s more – just completely rude, offensive and plain mad in every way. It’s great, there’s no movie like it and they’ve exceeded all expectations. To go and do that – balls to the wall – with no worries about trying to tone anything down, or to try to make it believable, you know, it’s just like a video game. There’s nothing more fun to do than to go and make something like that kind of a film, it’s pretty unique.”
Crank 2: High Voltage is currently scheduled for release in the US and the UK on 17th April 2009.
