An Interview with Bruce Fontaine
Last month I had the pleasure of watching and reviewing 2025’s Ruthless Bastards. Shortly after my review was posted, I was put in touch with the director of the film, Bruce Fontaine.
After chatting with a Bruce about the legendary Beardy and The Thundering Mantis, I asked Bruce if he’d be so kind to answer a few of my questions, and he was gracious enough to do so…
CTB: How did you begin your martial arts journey?
BF: I am a product of the 70s Bruce Lee and Hong Kong Kung Fu movies wave. I enrolled in a traditional Chinese martial arts school in Vancouver’s Chinatown and spent many a weekend at the Golden Harvest and Shaw Bros theatres. I later dabbled in other martial arts and some gymnastics, and settled into competition Wushu.
CTB: Like many martial arts champions in the past, you eventually made the jump to the movies. How did that transition happen?
BF: In 1986, I became a member of the Canadian National Wushu team and went to Tianjin, China, for the 2nd International Wushu Championships. Around this time, a lot of other things were happening that only someone in that universe (wushu and Hong Kong movies) might understand. Cynthia Rothrock and Michelle Yeoh did Yes, Madam, and Jet Li’s Shaolin Temple had come out.
While en route to China, we stopped in Hong Kong, where I made an appearance on a Hong Kong TV variety show called Enjoy Yourself Tonight to perform a wushu routine. Some of the cast of the show suggested I consider returning to Hong Kong, as using foreigners in film was becoming more popular. After the wushu competition, I spent a month in Beijing to train, and though I didn’t realize it at the time, I met several individuals with whom I would later cross paths: Jeff Falcon (Six String Samurai and Inspectors Wear Skirts), Kenn Goodman (Operation Condor and Robocop) and Dan Mintz (Operation Condor and Burning Ambition).
After returning to Canada, I was heavily considering my life options. Two things happened: I got a letter from Jeff Falcon telling me about his upcoming role in the movie Inspectors Wear Skirts (which also featured Cynthia Rothrock, whom I knew), I saw it in the theatre and thought, “if they can, why not me?” A few months later, I saw Jackie Chan’s Armour of God in the theatre. My girlfriend at the time knew how much I truly wanted to do this. In the theatre, while the movie was playing, she leaned over and said, “If you really want to do this, you should get over there.” That sparked a plan, and two years later, I was on a plane to Hong Kong. As a footnote, I would say that in some karmic way, the first film I would do was Inspectors Wear Skirts 2 and Operation Condor, the sequel to Armour of God, which I consider the pinnacle of my work in Hong Kong.
CTB: You have decades of stunt work under your belt. What was the craziest stunt you ever performed? And have you ever been seriously injured while performing a stunt?
BF: In both Hong Kong and the West, stunts and such often have categories: fighters, cars, wires, high falls, etc. I was more of a ‘fighter’ (film fighter, not a real-life fighter – big difference). I probably did crazier stuff in Hong Kong, where, honestly, things were done on the fly. I did a film called In the Line of Duty 5: Middle Man where I fight Cynthia Khan. The climax of that scene had the two of us fighting on the back of a moving flat-bed truck and jumping to another truck, and me getting kicked off the second truck. Everything that day was, “See that truck, can you jump on it?” Me, “How?” Them, “However, you can. Then see that other truck we want you to jump onto it. And finally, we’d like you to fall off this one.”
My worst injury was during rehearsals for a film shot in Canada, which would be Pat Morita’s (Karate Kid fame) last. We were rehearsing a fight scene that had me on a wire doing a 720 twist/barrel roll. Got dumped. Separated my collar bone at the age of 40. About three months of rehab.
CTB: In 2015, you made another career transition when you directed your first feature, Beyond Redemption. Was getting into the director’s chair a long term goal? Or was this an opportunity that presented itself and you took the leap?
BF: Even back in the Hong Kong days, it had always been my goal to be a filmmaker. Part of my reason for going to Hong Kong was that I appreciated the manner in which they executed action. Back in those days, if you watched Jackie or Sammo or others from that ’80s era, you could see a difference in the shooting and editing. To me, it was better; I learned a lot, but when I returned to Canada, I tried for years to get a project going, but Canada, as I like to say, can be the best and the worst place to be as a filmmaker. Fast forward to 2014, a few things happened in terms of timing that made me decide now or never. I came up with a concept based on the resources I knew I could get. I recruited the cast, the team, my writing collaborator, the locations, and the money, which was only $45K CAD. Except for the team, so many industry people said, “impossible”‘. I didn’t, but looking back, I think I said the subconscious equivalent of “hold my beer!” The film did well in that it sold in lots of countries (action sells), didn’t make me rich, but it opened some doors.
CTB: Your latest film is the highly entertaining and beautifully named, Ruthless Bastards. My understanding is that this was not your typical movie shoot. What can you tell us about how this project came together?
BF: After Beyond Redemption, we went to Hong Kong Filmart, in 2018 and 2019, where we were trying to get some deals. Big note, as an indie filmmaker, many don’t get this. There’s a lot that goes on trying to get the financing, distribution, cast attachments, etc., I was cognitively aware, but was still figuring it out. 2019, we were on the cusp of something big and then… COVID hit.
We had a new distributor who liked what I was offering. They were shopping one of our projects around at the film markets and had a lot of presale interest, but getting the ‘bankable’ cast we were after wasn’t happening. Quite by fluke, a US filmmaker friend, Ryan LaMaster, had a similar situation with a project of his own, but had Casper Van Dien interested. As his thing was stalled, I asked for an intro; he agreed, but I asked to wait as I didn’t feel the other project was a good fit. At the time, Ruthless Bastards didn’t even exist. I brainstormed with a writing collaborator friend, Varinder Jhattu, RB was born with a script cranked out in about a month.
Fast forward chats with Casper’s agent, Jeff Goldberg, who loved the script. We were looking at another actor as Casper’s partner, but declined in that he didn’t want to play an “aging” fixer/hitman. Jeff Goldberg and I chatted. He said, “‘Sean Patrick Flanery?” I said, “Boondock Saints?” Yes. Ruthless Bastards was born.
Vancouver has what I like to call a “hidden gem” in that there are so many well-known and “bankable” stars from Hong Kong/China and India. As it happened, I had worked with Theresa Lee (Big Bullet and Downton Torpedos) on my last Hong Kong film, Big Bullet, back in the day. She had retired from film and was living in Kamloops, Canada (four hours from Vancouver). I had to remind her who I was. She liked the part and agreed. She credits me for getting her out of retirement. Since then, she did a film with legend Anthony Wong (Hard Boiled and Infernal Affairs) and Hong Kong stunt legend Ridley Tsui.
Parmish Verma, I had caught some clips of him in the film Rocky Mental some time back. I thought he had a great screen presence. Later, I learned he lived in Canada. An introduction via a friend, Harj Nagra (who plays his sidekick), Parmish loved the role.
Hasleen Kaur, I had met a year before the film, through a friend who used to be with ZeeTV. She’d just done an Indian Netflix original, The Cat. As timing would have it, she was immigrating to Canada. She loved the part and came on board.
Some wheeling and dealing with our distributors, APL, lots of meetings to learn about tax credits and financing. A US presale, with Dark Star Films, and a small amount of equity.
To our benefit, being a Canadian production, we shot during the actors/writers strike. We had proper waivers, but it meant we were one of the few productions shooting, so getting local cast and crew was easier.
One of the biggest things that made Ruthless Bastards work was the team we had, in front of and behind the camera. The Vancouver stunt community also really pulled out the stops for us. In particular, with me from the beginning were our distributors, APL, and my co-producing partners, Alex Bogomolov and Wai Sun Cheng. I can say yes, it started with me, but without my producing partners, distributors, the entire production team, and of course, the great cast, we would not have gotten this project off the ground.
CTB: Was working with Casper Van Dien and Sean Patrick Flanery on Ruthless Bastards as fun as it was watching them? Their chemistry is off the charts in this one.
BF: When I was chatting with Jeff Goldberg, he had mentioned that both Casper and Sean were personal friends and wanted to do something together. So, given their individual screen presence in past films, I suspected we had something. As can be seen by the film, they definitely played very well off one another. They were both complete professionals.
While we had an editor, Dave Titus, I did a bit of the editing. So I have seen this movie in all its stages more times than I can count. One of my favorite scenes to watch is where Sean and Casper go off on Vancouver actors Gabriel Carter (Malcolm) and Kurt Ostlund (Hamish). That scene had a lot of dialogue contributions from Sean and Casper, and I got to say it’s one of my favorite scenes. Without that creative leeway they had, I don’t think the chemistry would have shone through the way it did.
CTB: Parmish Verma does such a fantastic job as “the bastard of bastards” in Ruthless Bastards. Did you ever find yourself so engrossed in his performance that you wanted to punch him in the face?
BF: Parmish is both a Punjabi pop star and a leading man in about eight or so theatrically released films, but this was his first Western film. He spent his years as a youth growing up in Australia, so he speaks perfect English and is quite Westernized. I was more than happy with his performance, but never to the point of wanting to punch him. He and I have been chatting about doing something else in the future.
CTB: Parmish did his job well, as I did want to punch him in his smug face. But I digress… One of the real surprises in the movie was Hasleen Kaur, who had one memorable scene after another. Do you see a bright future in the action world for Hasleen?
BF: Hasleen has several series that were shot in India; those are primarily drama series. I don’t think she has anything action-oriented coming out, but I know she very much wants to. I have a project in development that she will be one of the leads in. Hasleen was a great pleasure to work with. I don’t think I could have picked anyone better to play her role.
CTB: Finally, what’s next for Bruce Fontaine? Any other movies in the pipeline? What’s the possibility of a Ruthless Bastards 2?
BF: I’ve had chats with Sean and Casper, they are both very much on board with the idea of RB2. The biggest part of doing an indie film is getting the financing and distribution in place is probably the toughest part. Also, as the film is just getting released, a lot of it will depend on how well it performs financially. Hopefully, enough people will enjoy and we can do a sequel.
My distributors, APL, are trying to get presales on one of my projects; think Boondock Saints with three girls. All I will say on that. We also have an Indian market Taken with shades of John Wick in the works.
CTB: Thank you so much for your time, Bruce. And to everyone out there reading be sure to check out, and support Ruthless Bastards, so we can get that sequel!
