The 1972 movie Dolph Lundgren never gets tired of watching: “There’s always little details”
Dolph Lundgren loves films, but not necessarily the types that he stars in.
Rarely has there been an action star as misunderstood as Lundgren, who doesn’t deserve to be categorised as one of the many lunkheads who have emerged from the 1980s. Born in Sweden, where he survived horrific physical abuse from his father, Lundgren eventually earned his way to America through a career in chemistry, and eventually received a degree from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology before earning a master’s from the University of Sydney.
It was only during his time working odd jobs in America that Lundgren, a trained martial artist, developed a friendship with Sylvester Stallone, who cast him in Rocky IV as the villain Ivan Drago. Although the former has done an admirable amount of charity work and served for organisations assisting survivors of childhood abuse, he has also led a career as an unconventional action star, mostly appearing in B-movies.
Lundgren has been fairly honest about not being the best actor in the world, as it was his training in karate and judo that made him well-suited for action-themed roles, but he is still a deeply intelligent man with an understanding of the art of cinema, and has spoken fondly about the films that he feels best reflect the possibilities of the medium.
“One movie I like is The Godfather, the original, because it’s got everything,” Lundgren revealed, “The lighting, the acting, the story, the performances, direction, everything put together. You can always watch it. If you’ve seen it 20 times, you could see it another 20 times, you know? There’s always little details; that’s the thing, attention to detail.”
The Godfather almost speaks for itself at this point, as it has been regarded as an all-time classic since the moment that it debuted in theatres in 1972. Lundgren’s assessment that the film has “everything” is the perfect description as to why it has stood the test of time; every craftsperson working on The Godfather was at the peak of their abilities, and the film transformed what could have been a pulpy gangster story into an epic family tragedy about the collapse of the ‘American Dream’.
As was the case with Lundgren’s career, The Godfather basically happened by accident. It was while Francis Ford Coppola had been failing to preserve the production company American Zoetrope, which he had founded with George Lucas, that he was forced to take a studio job that would prevent him from being in further debt. Although none of the choices Coppola made was considered conventional, and he was nearly fired by Paramount several times, the film exceeded every expectation that was set in front of it.
While Lundgren has never been in a film that would be considered an all-time classic, he has found interesting ways to revisit some of his older characters, reprising his role as Drago in the legacy sequel Creed II, in which it was revealed that he faced shame after losing to Rocky during the events of Rocky IV, and had fueled his ambitions through his own son.
Similarly, he returned to the Universal Soldier franchise with the unconventional sequel Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, which transformed the superficial goofiness of Roland Emmerich’s original into a gritty, terrifying science fiction conspiracy thriller about the cult of toxic masculinity.
