One of Cleveland's most prolific independent filmmakers has a new action movie set to premiere this weekend.
Johnny Wu has directed, produced and edited 15 feature-length action films over the last 25 years.
His films have won awards at festivals across the world.
Wu's latest film, "Bullets, Brothers and Blood," might have been his most challenging.
He said during filming, he was sick with super high blood pressure and a blocked heart valve.
With the support of his cast and crew, like assistant director and producer Nick Muhlback, they were able to finish filming in 10 days.
"I did a lot of the scheduling and trying to group scenes together and figure out how we were going to film things in certain ways was a challenge, but it's a great challenge," Muhlback said. "You know, it teaches you how to be organized and kind of make things work."
The feature-length action film used local actors, artists and technicians.
Actress Shannon Ahlstrand said she's never experienced something where everyone from the community came together.
"He brought so many different people from the film community together and every set I was on, there were so many people, everybody had a job, everybody knew what the job was," she said. "And everybody was working on it and his sets run like clockwork."
Wu said scenes were filmed in downtown Cleveland, Asiatown, Slavic Village, Parma, Oberlin and Mentor-on-the-Lake.
"We have wonderful places that you can just shoot a different location in Cleveland," Wu said. "They can make it look like you're in L.A. You can make it look like you're in Phoenix, Ohio, Phoenix Arizona, you can make it look at any way you want."
The movie premieres Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Atlas Cinemas in Euclid.
