A former Ogden and Layton resident will see his dream film come to the big screen tonight.
Il Lim, a St. Joseph High School graduate who attended Weber State University, is the director, writer, producer and lead actor in "Acts of Violence," which opens in very limited release tonight.
The martial-arts action film, also starring LeeLee Sobieski and Ron Perlman, will open in four theaters in the Los Angeles area and in Utah at the Layton Hills 9, 728 W. 1425 North, Layton.
"It feels like a miracle," said Lim, who was born in South Korea and moved to Utah at age 6. "Making movies was always a dream of mine since I was a kid watching old Bruce Lee films and Clint Eastwood films."
Lim's father, Kap, taught martial arts at Weber State and also trained his son. Il Lim earned an associate's degree from Weber State in the early 1990s and headed west to pursue his Hollywood dreams.
Lim acted in commercials and in the HBO film "Double Bang," he said. He wrote "Acts of Violence," which is about a man who commits violent acts in response to a brutal attack on his wife. Lim returned to Utah to attend the Sundance Film Festival a few years back, in order to make connections that helped him finance his film.
But his biggest break so far came in the martial-arts studio he opened to help pay his bills. Sobieski signed up for classes, and took an interest in Lim's script. She agreed to play the role of his wife in the film, and showed the script to her friend, actor Ron Perlman, who also signed on.
"We met at a coffee shop, and Ron said he loved the script, 'Let's do it,' " Lim recalled. "And we got to work."
Lim said the filmmaking experience requires so many things to go right that he now believes it is a miracle any film, independent or from a studio, ever makes it to the screen. He said bumps in the road delayed his film's completion for several years. But last year, Lim was able to arrange for screenings in Korea and to take the film on the festival circuit. The film, rated R for violence, has won several festival honors, including for its action sequences, he said.
Lim said he expected his target audience to be young men who like action films, but he noted that during screenings in Korea, lots of older women lined up for tickets as well.
Back in America, executives at AMC agreed to look at the film, then to screen it in five theaters. Lim hopes word of mouth will benefit the project and eventually lead to wider release. He closed his martial-arts studio, and hopes to make filmmaking his career, along with acting and specialty work in martial-arts films.
"That is my intention," he said. "How I will succeed or fail is not really in my hands."
Lim said the five theaters playing his film will keep it as long as ticket sales are strong.
"I hope people will embrace it," he said of the film, which he says also has elements of comedy. "I know it might be a hard film for certain audiences to accept, because of the violence. I can't control that, either. My intention was to do a good movie."
Regardless, the screenings are Lim's dream come true, he said.
"If a boy from Utah could do it, anybody who has a dream should go for it," he said. "It can happen. Miracles do happen."
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