AURORA — Korean and U.S. movie stars descended on East Colfax Avenue on Tuesday — filming scenes for a Colorado company’s geopolitical thriller, “Serpent Rising.”
Filmmakers said they needed “a real sleazy motel.”
They picked the 91-room King’s Inn, owned by a Korean-American and surrounded by auto body shops, the homeless and hookers.
Motel residents obliged, jamming stairwells to peer at the action.
Actor Richard Moll, playing an international agent, glared from the front seat of an old blue sedan at an orange-clad prisoner in the back seat, played by Korean-born actor Julian Lee — distraught because a North Korean mercenary with a stiletto had just killed his buddy. Moll’s agent tells Lee he’ll be jailed, convicted, then executed for killing four cops.
“Or you can come back to the Company.”
Lee called East Colfax “perfect for this scene,” noting that a body recently was removed from Room 116.
A Stout Street Clinic mobile medical van parked out front, offering treatment for tenants lacking health insurance, including children and battered women.
The budget for “Serpent Rising” tops $1 million, and the cast includes several Asian stars such as Choi Min-Soo. Colorado Film School graduates worked on the crew.
The film will open in October at a festival in South Korea and may appear at theaters across Southeast Asia, said producer Mark Grove of Asgard Entertainment.
“The biggest markets in the film industry are in Asia,” Grove said. “The raw, gritty feeling of what we are trying to present requires that we really get into the concrete jungle.”
Motel resident Vance Holliday, 49, listening to the actors’ gun battles through the wall of his room, said the fake shots “sounded just like them,” meaning the real shots that occasionally pop in the area.
“It’s not a bad motel. It’s just low-income temporary housing for people like myself,” he said.
Assistant manager Sandy Elkins and her girlfriends tried to move close to the stars several times between scenes.
“We were hoping to get a few pictures with them,” she said. “But now they’ve left.”
Bruce Finley: 303-954-1700 or bfinley@denverpost.com
