“Three”: Louis Koo’s Painful Slap Gave Vicki Zhao a Blood Blister

Three <三人行>, Johnnie To’s (杜琪峯) 20th anniversary film for his production studio Milkyway Image, opened to positive reception in Mainland China on June 24th. Directed by To with a screenplay by Yau Nai-hoi (游乃海), Three stars Vicki Zhao (趙薇),Louis Koo (古天樂), and Wallace Chung (鍾漢良) in the lead.

The movie centers on wanted criminal Cheung Lai-shun (Wallace) who, after realizing he is outnumbered, shoots himself in the head so the police would have no choice but to take him to the hospital. There, Lai-shun attempts to prolong his treatment so he can buy time for his gang to rescue him. Meanwhile, in order to hide his mistakes from the failed capture, Inspector Chan Wai-lok (Louis) threatens the criminal’s brain surgeon Tung Sin (Vicki) to kill Lai-shun during an operation.

Three, which was shot between March and July of last year, has been one of Vicki’s more challenging projects. Not only did she have to get used to Johnnie To’s preference of rewriting scripts on the spot, she also had to endure a few painful slaps on the face by her costar, Louis.

The aforementioned scene centers on Vicki’s role Dr. Tung Sin, who refuses to kill her patient as instructed by Louis’ role, Inspector Chan Wai-lok. Louis then slaps Vicki a few times on the face in anger. They re-acted the scene five more times to get different camera angles.

Vicki said Louis slapped her so hard her face started to swell. She had put ice on her cheeks in between takes to prevent it from swelling further. “I definitely lost feeling on my face for a while,” said Vicki. “Movies need to provide realism, and if Louis faked his slaps, I wouldn’t be able to give him a real reaction. I seriously worked hard in allowing him to slap me,” she joked.

The Chinese actress didn’t know about the slapping scene until the day of filming. Though worried, she managed to do the first few takes without much trouble. Vicki said she would have taken in more slaps if Louis didn’t stop about five takes in.

“Louis suddenly shouted ‘Stop filming!’ and told me that I had a blood blister in the corner of my eye. I freaked out and immediately asked someone to give me a mirror. The director saw it and postponed the shooting to tomorrow.”

The trauma on Vicki’s face punctured some of the tissues around her eye, leading to a 5mm blood blister. Vicki immediately went to the hospital to get it checked. Fortunately, it wasn’t a serious injury at all, and she went back to the studios the next day.

“I jokingly told the writer that I should also slap Louis for a revenge. When I got my script the next day, that scene was added in! I can’t believe I finally got to slap Louis! What an excellent script, haha!”

But Vicki said she really has no right to complain about Louis’ slaps, as Louis had to do much more pain-inducing stunts than her.

“We all just want to make a good movie. Actors are not supposed to have it easy. Louis had to do a scene where he was to jump down from a rope three stories up. It was really high up and Louis had to do it over twenty times. My heart really ached for him. The kind of pain he had to go through is indescribable. Though he was also on the verge collapsing, he made it through. A slap in the face is nothing compared to that.”

Three opens in Hong Kong on July 14, 2016. It also stars Michael Tse (謝天華), Lo Hoi-pang (盧海鵬), Raymond Wong (黃浩然), Lam Suet (林雪), and Timmy Hung (洪天明).

“THREE” Final Trailer