We now live in a world both in film and television where everything is based on something. You point out, "Star Wars" was an original screenplay, "Raiders of the Lost Ark," an original screenplay, "Ghostbusters" an original screenplay, "Back to the Future." All these things that people love were original ideas many years ago.
Alfred GoughMost fight sequences on a television show, probably any action adventure show that you know of, if you asked them how long they probably spend, [it's] one or two days doing the fight. Where we were spending eight days concurrently with an episode doing our fight sequences.
Alfred GoughThey [movies] don't really have the cultural impact - other than "Star Wars," of course - that they used to because television is something that week to week people invite into their homes. It's a relationship that in success can go on six, seven, eight years. I think certainly in the early days, you definitely want that engagement.
Alfred GoughI mean when you go to a network and say, "We want to make a martial arts series in the future." And give them the pitch. And by the way, the only way to achieve the authentic Hong Kong martial arts we need a full-time fight team unit working concurrently, and we're hiring a Chinese fight team from Hong Kong. And they were like, "Great, let's go."
Alfred GoughAnd having those mystical elements you see in Asian cinema and certainly Asian martial arts cinema, it's something that we wanted to begin to introduce - the idea of spirituality and the idea of there being something else out in the world besides people who are great fighters.
Alfred GoughSo the idea was that, some catastrophic event had happened. There was a long dark age and then out of that, 100 years ago in this world, seven barons - these men and women - rose up and formed the new society. It's a feudal world, a part feudal barons and part warlord and part mob boss and they each control a huge resource so that there's an uneasy alliance, but they all need each other.
Alfred Gough