‘Minions: The Rise of Gru’ Director on How Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee and the 1970s Influenced the Film

variety.com:

Carole Horst “Minions: The Rise of Gru” may be filled with familiar, uh, faces of the lovable yellow creatures, but it transports them back to the 1970s, when Gru (still voiced by Steve Carell) was a supervillian in training and the Minions were looking to fit into his burgeoning world.The latest installment of the popular franchise from Universal and Illumination was directed by Kyle Balda, himself a veteran of the world of the Minions and a child of the ’70s.

The animation team had to distill tons of research of the colors, the music, the architecture, clothes and hairstyles of the mid-1970s for the film, which follows elementary school student Gru as he applies to join the Vicious 6, a team of supervillians, but of course, events, with the help of the Minions, go awry.

The feature has fun referencing kung fu movies of the ’70s, something Balda loves. Much of the action is set in San Francisco and the city’s famous Chinatown, with the venerable Michelle Yeoh playing a key role as martial arts Master Chow, who trains three of the Minions for battle.Jackie Chan is one of the biggest influences of the training and fight scenes. “Jackie Chan across the board because his films have such a great blend of really high stakes action and comedy.

It’s sort of a big influence for the Minions,” Balda says. In the past films, Charlie Chaplin and Peters Sellers influenced the Minions’ animators because with them, “everything is based on pantomime” with them.“And Jackie Chan is just brilliant at bringing the acting and the comedy into the action,” Balda says. “One of the clearest winks [to kung fu films] I would say, is more to Stephen Chow and things like ‘Shaolin Soccer’ and ‘Kung Fu Hustle,’ which you can really see with Master.