Unless you're a genre geek, you may not have heard of Joseph Kahn. He's mostly known for his music videos and commercials, though he did direct the horror-comedy Detention and has been known to get quite engaged with some of his film's detractors online (our own Scott Weinberg has gone toe-to-toe with him over it more than once on Twitter). How you feel about Kahn's new ad for whiskey brand Johnnie Walker's Blue Label drink may depend less on your feelings about the filmmaker, though, and more on the horrid cliché of resurrecting dead celebs to shill products.
Kahn brought martial artist and actor Bruce Lee back from the grave in his 90-second ad called Game Changer. "We shot it in Hong Kong, and then we worked with VFX company the Mill in London to create a completely CGI Bruce Lee over nine months," the filmmaker writes. "EVERY shot of his head and every detail in there is completely CGI. We got Shannon Lee, Bruce Lee's daughter, to come aboard and we really picked her brain to make sure that everything was accurate from look to soul. We wanted to be as respectful to the man and legend as we could."
The clip is too motivational poster meets Nike television commercial for this writer, but let us know what you make of it.
Johnnie Walker "Game Changer" from Joseph Kahn on Vimeo.