Sam Liu is one of the most prolific animators of today, with over a decade working for both Marvel Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation, including directing the latest DC Animated Movie, Batman: Soul of the Dragon. Set in the 1970s, the new film has Batman team up with the martial artists he trained alongside to stop an evil cult from plunging the world into eternal darkness.
In an interview with CBR, Liu discussed the cinematic influences in the film, developing the movie's kinetic action sequences and making sure the story honored and offended the time period and cultures depicted over the course of the film.
CBR: So with this film, you've got Batman set in the '70s with all those cinematic influences. Why did you want to set the movie in this time period?
Sam Liu: That's all [executive producer] Bruce Timm; I can't take credit for that. I think this is his sweet spot. If he could visit any era, I think that was the most memorable time of his life. [Laughs] I think he has an affinity for the '70s. For me, it was more about the kung fu movie elements — the exploitation films. The '70s was not a great time for me growing up because I was growing up in the South as an Asian, but again, kung fu cinema was my favorite growing up. For me, [the '70s were] painful, but this was something I felt like I should do because [kung fu movies] meant so much growing up.
As a half-Asian kid that grew up in Virginia, I definitely hear that. With that in mind, how was it making sure you did Asian characters like Richard Dragon and Lady Shiva justice in this film?
Yeah, I think it's great! I'm older so I think the change is great because to me, I didn't think there was going to be these huge steps, and any small step is a good step for future depictions. For me, it was great to have have such a mixed leading cast and focus on these characters. It was great, and Bruce Timm was great about this, too. Coming in, I was a little nervous, because it's '70s exploitation kind of thing, and sometimes nowadays that's not well looked upon. [Laughs] It can be a delicate thing to navigate potentially, so I remember when I was signing on to this, I told Bruce, "You all know I'm a Chinese man. I don't want to work on something that might not be well looked at," and they were like, "No, no, no. If there's any part of this that is questionable, you need to let us know." So it was great! Everybody was on board to make something that hopefully navigated that delicately.
Was this core ensemble of Batman, Richard Dragon, Lady Shiva and Bronze Tiger always the intended group for the film?
Yeah. Again this from Bruce Timm and so much of this stuff, I think, is nostalgia for him. I think he always wanted to do a story like this. He had these types of characters he wanted to see together. When they came to him to ask what he wanted to do next, there wasn't anything immediately on the shelf, so he was like, "Hey, I always wanted to do a movie like this." This was before me getting into it so a lot of that discussion was done before I came on board.
While you've certainly helmed a lot of animated features before, this has some really big action set pieces. With such an emphasis on martial arts, how was it developing those fight scenes?
It's difficult. I always dread that stuff if I don't have the scheduling. I like doing that stuff if I have the time. During that period, I was working on multiple projects at the same time, so it was sort of hard to focus [on] care they need to have because martial arts fighting is very, very specific — especially if you're doing styles of fighting. With normal superhero things, it's just people punching each other in the face, getting thrown through a brick wall; the spectacle, one-move kind of things.
We were working on this while we were working on Superman: Red Son, so it was really difficult. With both of them, I was working with Bruce Timm, so we'd have to spend time editing final picture for Red Son while we were delivering the animatics for this, so thankfully my board team is really, really strong and they were all really, really invested. There were mandates on getting really great fight scenes and give people [martial arts] styles. Ben Turner is more of a hard style, karate style. Richard Dragon is more fluid, a kind of Jeet Kune Do, wushu kind of a thing. Shiva is more into weapons but she's more wushu as well. There's another sort of side character that has a snake style.
We tried to do as much as we could given the time, but me, I was nervous all the time, like, "This is going to be really hard to animate! I hope the animators overseas get it so at least it looks kind of good and not dumb." [Laughs]. There were other little things we tried to add too, like Shiva has more of a Donnie Yen kind of thing than a '70s kind of thing with the hands and poses and stuff like that. It was kind of complicated and difficult and it's not perfect, but I think there's enough flavor of it to each of the characters that hopefully they each get moments to really shine.
Richard Dragon really is Bruce Lee by way of James Bond in this film. How was it giving him that cool prologue?
It's awesome! I think the first draft of the script already laid that down when I came on, even reading it. Jeremy [Adams] did a great job on this script and when I was reading the first draft I remember thinking, overall, the bones of it are really there. You saw that scene between Richard Dragon and the bouncer, right?
Yeah, that's a very Enter the Dragon-type scene right there.
Exactly! I was so glad that that was in there because, to speak about the racial thing, I wanted to at least address it and not shy away from it and pretend stuff like that didn't happen. So I'm glad [the movie] had that.
You've been working in animation with Warner Bros. on their iconic superheroes for quite some time.
That's why I continue to work here! Being in animation wasn't really a thing I wanted to get into in the beginning. I looked into working in comics because animation to me — the majority of it still is comedy in America, and that wasn't really my thing. But with my career, especially for the last decade or two, I'm thankful I still get to work at Warner Bros. because I love working on iconic superheroes. I love telling the story of the hero; I'm still interested in it because I get to work on A-list superheroes.
With the accelerated production schedule, as you were working on this the same time as Red Son, was there anything you wanted to include that didn't make the final cut?
There's little flourishes that I wanted to do because I was so nervous that the coolness of some of the fights wasn't going to be there. We sent some of them late and they just didn't get animated but they were just little things that Bruce Timm was like, "It's fine without it." In the end, I wanted to do a kind of highlight of [the heroes] doing their moves, and there were some other shots where we sent little things and [the overseas animators] either didn't get them or just threw them away. [Laughs] They just didn't come in with the footage so we just had to edit what we received, but afterwards we were like, "I thought this was a Richard Dragon-centric movie but Shiva just steals this movie!"
I really wish we had just one flashback in the middle with Richard Dragon because we get his single moment in the [prologue], but we get these emotional backgrounds for Shiva and Ben, but I really wish we had one more for Richard. If we have the time, a new feature, I'd like to do another Richard flashback before he discovers his power, basically.
With that in mind, screenwriter Jeremy Adams was very excited about the possibility of a sequel. Would you helm another one of these stories?
I would love to do it except for the martial arts stuff because it's hard. [Laughs] I would love to do more Richard Dragon stuff, but both Jeremy and Bruce Timm are huge fans of martial arts — Jeremy especially. He loves the old school martial arts stuff, so he was really, really excited to work on this. [Laughs]
Directed by Sam Liu and executive produced by Bruce Timm, Batman: Soul of the Dragon stars David Giuntoli as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Mark Dacascos as Richard Dragon, Kelly Hu as Lady Shiva, Michael Jai White as Ben Turner/Bronze Tiger, James Hong as O-Sensei and Josh Keaton as Jeffrey Burr. The film arrives on Jan. 12, 2021 on digital HD and on Jan. 26 on Blu-ray and 4K UHD.