Master Woo Ping trained Michael Angarano for 8 hours a day!!

Sci Fi.com interviewed screenwriter John Fusco and Collin Chou, who stars as the Jade Warlord, at their Wizard World appearance on Saturday. People are wondering how somone like Michael Angarano got up to snuff to fight alongside Jackie and Jet, well, here’s the answer…

Forbidden Star Had To Learn Fast

John Fusco, who wrote the screenplay for the upcoming fantasy movie The Forbidden Kingdom, told SCI FI Wire that legendary martial-arts expert Yuen Woo-ping took 20-year-old novice Michael Angarano (Sky High) under his wing to train him to look like a believable warrior.

“Michael is believable as that annoying kid from South Boston, because you believe he would be picked on, and he had zero martial-arts training,” Fusco said in an interview at Wizard World in Los Angeles. “But he was young, athletic and a little reckless, and Woo-ping took him under his wing and transformed him.”

Angarano plays a kung-fu-obsessed American teenager who finds himself transported back to ancient China, where he joins a crew of warriors, including legendary martial-arts stars Jet Li and Jackie Chan, on a quest to free the imprisoned Monkey King.

In an interview given before he screened footage from the movie to Wizard World, Fusco said: “Michael was very good with martial arts. And when I gave Woo-ping the script, it would say something like ‘The Silent Monk enters with a Phoenix punch with Praying Mantis style and goes into an elbow break and spins into a reverse leg sweep.’ And Woo-ping told me that this is the point he usually gets in the script that says, ‘And now they fight.’”

Woo-ping, who is also the executive producer of the film, put Angarano in training for eight hours a day to learn the Monkey King Staff form. “Michael told me he was in such pain, but no one spoke English, and he couldn’t tell anyone,” Fusco said. “And finally Woo-ping said, ‘Where do you hurt?’ and then [he] said, ‘That is far from your heart, so don’t worry about it.’”

There were a few injuries during production of the movie. “Jackie Chan was hurt pretty badly [during the shoot], but he is very tough,” Fusco said. “He kept on going. And Michael had a stick fight with Jet Li and wasn’t fast enough, and [Li] gave him a black eye, and he was so proud, telling everyone, ‘Jet Li gave me this.’”

Collin Chou also stars in the movie. “I was lucky I didn’t get injured,” Chou said. “Woo-ping is relentless. He is like my father and friend, and I have worked with him a long time in the Matrix movies. I heard him at one point tell Michael, ‘If Keanu Reeves can do this then you can do it, too.’” The Forbidden Kingdom, directed by Robert Minkoff (The Lion King), is scheduled to be released nationwide on April 18 by Lionsgate. –Mike Szymanski

Here’s an appeal to our readers… if ANYONE was at Wizard World, we’d love to hear more about it, especially what they showed and how it looked! So, please drop us a line if you were there!