“It wasn’t a bad movie. It was alright, but it’s never got the attention that it deserved,” explains uncredited executive producer Dirk Flinders. “Christopher Lambert did a great job in his portrayal of a dorky westerner succumbing to yellow fever. There was not reason to watch it beyond the moment when Joan Chen’s character was killed. But, that’s the point.”
Flinders, an aging Hollywood industry type who’s by and large lived off his giant-sized trust fund for most of his life, has never been the talk of town, and time is running out for him to achieve some kind of fame or notoriety. He wants that to change though. He wants people crossing the street to talk to him and, if they don’t, he wants people to remind themselves that they must chat to him about the gossip that they’ve been hearing about him next time they have the chance.
“I’m against ignorance and blinkered thinking. Why don’t young people react to my movie in the way they kind of got annoyed with Lost in Translation or that other movie with Chinese actresses instead of Japanese actresses (Memoirs of a Geisha)? With The Hunted, they have a great opportunity to vent, to protest, and to chant my name after I tweet a well-timed retort.”
While taking credit for a movie when there is no proof of his involvement may come across as very brazen thing to do, I find myself warming to the veteran power-broker/creative adviser. His non-stop enthusiasm for such a dud movie starring a one emotion actor has to be admired. But, that enthusiasm definitely crosses into creepy territory as he focuses on the obvious high point of the film.
“I want people to channel their outrage towards this film. There’s a Japanese woman looking sexy as hell in it for eleven minutes, but she’s not actually Japanese. She’s got boobs to die for too, a juicy ass, and she’s seducing a European man. That fact alone ought to get bored Illinois suburbanites interested. I want the steamy sex scene to be the gateway into the film, my film, being hotly discussed by the easily-outraged web-addicts around the world.
“Joan Chen had teenagers getting all hot and bothered downstairs when they saw her in The Last Emperor and Wildside. Have you seen how many views that stuff still gets online!? That’s an incredible amount of masturbating going on right there. But she never got that kind of love with The Hunted, and I’m sure that must put her in a cloudy funk when she thinks about it. So, I’m here to try to brighten up her day as well. Only more randy punters jerking to Joan will do that.
“You see, I care about the artists long after they’ve worked on my projects. That’s part of the old time Hollywood tradition of which I’m a custodian. I was uncredited as an executive producer due to Hollywood politics and an unsavoury incident with a jealous ex-lover. But, I don’t play dirty. I’m a supporter of art. You won’t see me spilling the beans about who slept with which best boy or who relieves themself into stray buckets between takes. I’ve read those books, of course, but I didn’t contribute to them.
“Let the podcasters, the YouTubers, and the Redditors love it and hate it, the way they’ll go on about Starship Troopers, Revenge of The Nerds, and 60s rock stars. It’s time to debate The Hunted, and it’s my job to see that it happens.”
