Robert Mark Kamen interview

For the Writers Guild of America West, Shira Gotshalk talks to screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen whose credits include The Karate Kid, The Fifth Element (with Luc Besson) and, most recently, Taken (with Luc Besson) which showed in the UK last autumn.

Beyond the Karate Kid movies, how has the practice of martial arts informed you as a writer?

Well, I can write great action scenes. Action scenes are written like little movies. They’re in three acts, almost, and you have to fill up each act. And since I know a lot about fighting, I can be specific about it. But what I find is, you don’t have to when you have great choreographers like Cory Yuen or Woo-ping Yuen, who did Unleashed. You just sort of inform the scene by making it in three acts and let them put in all the technical stuff.