It was a toasty mid-afternoon in downtown Kuala Lumpur when we met at the Old Town Kopitiam. A waiter served three orders of coffee in baked porcelain cups and set down a plate of toast spread with sweet "kaya". Across the table, Nikolas Paharzi (aka "Niko") draped one leg over the other before he stirred some sugar into his drink. It was his idea to meet in this little coffeeshop just a few blocks off of the city center. Despite the weather, the black-furred wolf seemed comfortable with a red dress shirt and a jacket on. Dressing better than most, Niko is one of several directors in the so-called "Geek Wave" of Asian independent cinema and serials. He is mostly known for putting together cult favourites like the supernatural murder mystery 'The Midnight Channel' and 'Before, Beauvoir', a dark and gritty companion film for the recently remastered DatChildren TV series. His most recent work was the big-budget (and notoriously troubled) production 'Nephilim', a twelve-episode Sci-Fi miniseries. Sitting beside him was Leon Fedorov, a tall canine with cream and pale-brown fur wherever his tank top didn't cover up. The clothes on him are of a foreigner trying to get used to the local heat. As I noticed when he gave a polite welcome, he speaks like an American, but with a charming hint of a Bulgarian accent to got with the persistent, warm smile on his face. He looks very different without the full-body dye job required for him to play the complicated role of cybershaman Macheviel in Nephilim. When he laid back against the chair, though, the athletic body and deep, resonant voice was unmistakable. Mad Monks Magazine: Congrats on the release of the Nephilim DVD boxset. I heard you've had a hard time getting to that point. Nikolas Paharzi: I think anyone remotely familiar with Nephilim would know that it didn't get many viewers. The studio was ready to pull the plug by episode six and we only managed to finish work up to episode eight before we were kicked off the air. For the final Act, episodes nine to twelve, we brought whatever assets we had and negotiated a deal for us to finish the series on our own and distribute it without marketing support. MM: Would you believe that some people did notice the change between eight and nine? NP: Oh-Arr-El-Why? For the handful of people who actually saw it, they either loved the changes to death or wanted us dead. The early episodes were more polished and conventional, and the later ones were more experimental and philosophical. I'd called up old friends from AnthroAsia and fished some old favours from Mamudoon Films, and said: 'Here're are stuff we were allowed to use, let's finish what we started.' Some of the stuff like music and designs were owned by the previous studio, but Mamudoon filled in the gaps. That's probably why some of the scenes had a similar look to Karmapolitan. [ http://www.furaffinity.net/view/199109/ ] Leon Fedorov: Being able to visit Mamudoon was a nice thing for me, since I got to meet Aaron Sergei who played Yuri in Karmapolitan. He's so much more of comic nerd than I am, and I look forward to working with him someday. NP: I think somebody needs to interview both of them about what it's like playing handsome dog-guy cyborgs. Leon chuckles a bit nervously at this. MM: Speaking of handsome cyborgs: The suit. The damned, body-hugging, ball-crotch, glowing suit. Leon Fedorov: when I first saw the suit, I thought, 'Hell, didn't George Michael wear this thing in a music video?' I mean, it looked like it provided enough coverage and could stand up to a beating, but it's so damn revealing, especially without the armor plates on. It's like, the more private a body part is, the more skin-tight it got there. Sure, I've done modeling work, so I wasn't shy about putting it on, but still. It wasn't as uncomfortable as I'd expected, but it did get hot after a while. NP: Leon asked me what the frack I was thinking, then I gave him a Masamune Shirow poster book. LF: It was Intron Depot, actually. I remember Niko saying: 'What he's doing with boobs, I want done on man-junk.' MM: It's almost up there with that movie with swinging blue wang, but with tights on. NP: You're welcome, junkies. Here's your yum-yums. I'm still wondering if that was some obscure reference to something else. One aspect of Geek Wave work is the frequent borrowings from and references to other works in film, animation, comics and music, both in the mainstream and the fringe, that are are used in new or interesting ways. The art and the trick, as Niko has said in an earlier interview, is hiding them in plain sight. ---------- MM: We had a hard time believing it wasn't CG. NP: I tried to reserve CG for wider shots, and prefer prosthetics and costumes for closer ones. The powered armour was an actual costume you could put on and move around in. The base body-suit was made from breathable rubber, and the armor broke into segments so we could replace them with ones that looked damaged. LF: Rob Paulsen would throw a punch at me, then cut, then they'd replace my shoulder part with a broken one, and then we'd shoot the next part in sequence. They piece the shots together so well, it's almost stop motion. NP: I gotta mention here that the bare-handed sword clap was live action. Leon got injured doing one of the takes for it, and we had to wait till he got better. We were forced to cut out many action shots when the studio got wind of the accident. MM: You mean there was more? NP: Yeah, things like neck-twisting, weird pile-drives and slamming heads to knees. Stuff that was really dangerous for live work, but I didn't want to resort to CG puppets. LF: I played rugby and stuff when I was in school, and I kind of think I could've done all those scenes, but y'know, insurance and lawyers and shit like that. ---------- NP: With regard to some commercials I'd done, I'd been accused of "ruining" things that I myself have a fond regard for. The fact is, I enjoy popcorn flicks, action movies and over-the-top cartoons as much as the artsy stuff. I'm always seeking moments that are visceral, make me go what-the-fuck. In a way, the fight between Chev and the factory ninjas was a nod to animes and films I used to watch. LF: 'This is like one of my Japanese...' NP: Shut the fuck up, Otacon. MM: I can think of where you got the part where the ninjas started multiplying by the hundreds. NP: At least it didn't look half as fake as it was back in my time. There's a deleted part where one of them says 'MOAR' in a kind of extended throaty growl. I LOL'd for a bit there. MM: Any other shout-outs with that particular sequence? NP: Metal Gear Solid, Ghost In The Shell and The Matrix are most obvious. A bit of Tron in the later part. Also, the intro sequence to Kung Fu Panda. MM: Wait, what? ---------- NP: Thing is, originally, Chev would end up as just this pair of legs, a torso and half a head and he'd still be kicking ass. LF: Seriously? NP: You know I wouldn't do that to you, Leon. MM: Don't you think that sort of thing puts you at risk of trying to be too awesome to the point of being silly? NP: The art director for the remaining episodes, my friend Annaryaali, poked me about Chev's Marty Sue thing when I was writing the screenplay. In retrospect, some of the things I'd written would look silly on screen, though there was a reasonable reason Chev would still go even with half his body missing. So I traded what-the-fuck moments for the audience being able to still relate to Chev. LF: I don't see why you held back, I mean, Yaali's ideas were way more wicked sick and it went in anyway. The director sort of stuck his tongue out at Leon, right then. NP: While we're on it, I can argue that Macheviel is not a Sue. I mean, in episode eight he takes the worst beating in the same factory where his body was made while fighting soulless copies of his already-powerful frame. Later on, there are more instances that basically recall the idea that him going in and out of the physical world fucks everything up. A quarter of the world thanks him for the upload technology, and the rest want to chew off his synthetic balls for it. By the end of the series, he's gone from a mystical freshly-born wolfman angel into this Frankenstein monster made of stitched-together parts. LF: I still don't get why people like Frankenstein Macheviel, much less made porn artwork of him. ---------- MM: After dealing with that batshit crazy, yet mesmerizing, waterfall of ninjas pouring onto him, Chev went, well, Terminator. Makeup or CG? NP: Prosthetics, with some CG for the finer bits and lights. MM: Was it glued on? 'Cause that'd hurt like Hell for Leon. LF: Haaahaha, it wasn't so bad. They shaved one side of my head and taped my ear back. The head-piece was something like half-a-pound heavy. They used some kind of glue on me that unbinds at a certain temperature, so taking it off wasn't painful at all. MM: The razor burns, however... LF: Damn, yeah. Oh, and my girlfriend saw me after the shoot and gave me a coin with one face scratched out. NP: Geeks in love. ---------- MM: For a while, there were rumours that you were romantically involved with Felix Torani who played Samuel. what do you think about this "is he or isn't he" mentality when it comes to an actor's sexual orientation? LF: It's an actor's job to be convincing, so we can't really depend on his roles as a measure of who he is. Some even believe it for real even when it's not, and others end up discovering something about themselves through it. I know I'm straight, and the gay rumours cleared on their own, but I could understand why Macheviel would do the things he does. Personally, I just thought I did a pretty good job if a scene like the one where Chev makes love to another man come across as authentic. NP: Leon, such a dear that he is, never asked me to apologize for that bit of fanservice. LF: Hahah, I knew what I was getting into, so I can't get mad. I've even had the awkward experience of fans pointing me to pictures of Chev doing it with the male cast. A few of them while he is in the, ehem, "suit". NP: God, I love those. ---------- NP: I talked to the writer of Nephilim books. He had a great crush on a best friend, who he wasn't sure would return the feelings he had. He managed to find out for sure eventually, and got into a relationship, but for Chev, he never really got the opportunity or courage for it, especially after Samuel started seeing another girl. MM: Teenage homo-sexual frustration? In a movie with cyborg ninja, werewolf robots and dope-fiend hackers? LF: That's Niko for you. NP: Furfags forever.