I

Spent yesterday on the set of a Cambodian action movie. The movie is being produced by, and is also starring, a layyer friend of mine, a Cambodian American named David.

David is a rich and powerful guy. He drives around in a black Mercedes and has a couple automitic weapons in the trunk. He’s also got a bodyguard or two, as I found out when we went to meet at the coffee shop before heading over to the set, on location about two hours outside of Phnom Penh.

A clean cut, youngish wiry looking guy with a smile sat a few tables in back of David; he seemed to be sussing me out, so I gave him a nod and smiled back at him.

“Who is that dork”, I thought, “giving me the evil eye?”

Later, when the dork escorted me and David and David’s young daughter to the Mercedes, I saw the tail of his shirt fall away to reveal a dull, mean pistol wedged in a holster.

“The dork…muct be…David’s body guard””

So the bodyguard guy ushered David, myself, and David’s wife and daughter in to the Mercedes and drove us to the location.

I sat in the front seat, riding in style with an AK-47 with collapsable butt-stock lying casually in the crevice between my left knee and the stick shift–and not far from the quick right Shootin’hand of David’s bodyguard.

Anyway, on we went, across the bridge and the Tonle Sap river, twards the distant location: a lumbermill, where a drug sale-gone-bad (movie version of course) was about to take place.

II

More to come soon, including: the shooting scene…using LIVE BULLETS!