I first met filmmaker Charlie Nguyễn in 2005 during a question-and-answer session following a screening of his bicultural romantic comedy, “Chances Are.” My impression? I found him talented, almost painfully shy but overall, very real. Dressed in stonewashed jeans and a hooded sweatshirt (his standard uniform), he was candid, very self-effacing in front of an audience of UCLA students.

Now, two years later, my impression is that he is a man who remains persistently modest and generous, and who promises to be a rising star in the film world. With his third and latest feature, “The Rebel,” due to premiere tonight as it opens this year’s Vietnamese International Film Festival, I caught up with him to talk about his career, his family and the experience of making movies.

“The Rebel” is a stunning, action-packed martial arts film, graced with a love story and elements of black magic. It makes a statement about the “evil” of colonial imperialism while being an ambitious undertaking. Historically, it is the first major film collaboration financed by producers from both the United States and Viẽt Nam.

It’s also believed to be the first film made in Việt Nam by a director who deviates from the original, government-approved screenplay for the sake of art. The realization of this film is a testimony not only to Charlie’s vision and dedication, it too is a chance for siblings to combine their ideas together.

A family affair

“The Rebel” was co-produced by Charlie’s younger brother, Johnny Trí Nguyễn, as well as by his sister and brother-in-law, Tawny Trúc Nguyễn and Jimmy Nghiêm Phạm. The leading male role of Cường is played by brother Johnny. Other stars include veteran Dustin Nguyễn of television’s “21 Jump Street” fame, who plays a sinister mercenary, Sỹ; and spellbinding newcomer Ngô Thanh Vân, cast as the female lead, Thúy.

All of the major actors do their own martial-arts stunts and most impressive among these is Thanh Vân, who prior to making this film had no experience in the sport. But she took a cram course, allowing her to perform convincingly onscreen.

Among the minor roles, Charlie cast his uncle, Nguyễn Chánh Tín, a legendary stage actor and singer in Việt Nam. Charlie remembers when he was 8, and riding on the front handlebars of Uncle Tín’s motorcycle, on their way the premiere of a play in which Uncle Tín was the star. Fans cheered them, and being at the center of their attention, Charlie basked in the glow. That was his first memory of being star struck, he said.

His first memory of going to the cinema with his aunt left an indelible mark, too. The picture, a Western, wowed him and made him fall in love with the movies.

When asked what inspired “The Rebel” to be set in 1927, colonial Việt Nam, Charlie shared with me some fascinating family drama. The story is based on recollections of his paternal grandfather, who served as a major general in the anti-French insurgency. He died at 63 of kidney failure — before Charlie was born — but the director nevertheless has clear images of his Ông Nội culled from photos, weapons, uniforms and a biography all left behind.

Growing up, the other men around Charlie also influenced him for his father and five uncles practiced martial arts avidly. His dad trained the South Vietnamese Army in the discipline, while one of his uncles opened a school in Sài Gòn to teach the sport, along with serving as a bodyguard to the prime minister in pre-1975 Việt Nam.

In high school, Charlie and brother Johnny were obsessed with all types of martial arts. They would join a dojo and learn everything they could about one form of the sport, before moving on to pick up another. Charlie said he would watch Bruce Lee movies over and over, sketching pictures of the cult hero in his fighting stances and tacking them up in his room to admire.

A D-I-Y guy

By the late 1980s, with the advent of MTV, Charlie became fascinated with videos. He would watch the music channel and compare it with Vietnamese television and soap operas, noticing that there was a huge difference between the quality of MTV and Vietnamese productions.

To better understand the disparity between the two, he headed to the Garden Grove public library, near his home in Southern California, to read about film and video. He saved his money, bought a Super 8 camera and started making home movies. Usually his subjects were himself and Johnny sparring, mimicking their martial arts heroes. At times, they would force younger sister Tawny to operate the camera.

Soon, Charlie started his own production company, Cinema Pictures, to begin work on his first feature martial-arts action film, “Thời Hùng Vương 18,” in 1996. Set in 900 BC Việt Nam, it focused on the Huøng Vương warlord dynasty, shot at a ranch in Riverside, Calif.

Once again, Charlie took a D-I-Y — do it yourself — approach. He enrolled and finished a few UCLA extension courses on screenwriting, managing to draft his own screenplay in English, then translating it into Vietnamese after spending many days doing his own historical research. He wrote, directed and starred in “Thời Hùng Vương 18” and even built the sets.

But more than just making action movies, he yearned to make films that had more depth to the storytelling. His second effort, “Chances Are,” is a sweet romantic comedy that follows an average Việt Kiều man on his circuitous return to Việt Nam to find love and marriage. While light and funny, it’s a bold film that, in its own subtle way, uncovers the common practice of deception in the games people play to get what they want.

Despite the wide appeal of his film in the Vietnamese American community, Charlie remains gravely critical of “Chances Are” because he said he did not have as much creative control as he would have liked.

“I was hired to direct a film” by a production company “and was limited by what they wanted ... not necessarily what I thought was best,” he recalled. Still, doing the project took him back to his homeland, an opportunity to make important connections in the film industry in Việt Nam. It also gave him, he said, invaluable experience working within the confines of the government’s “cultural police” experience that would help him bend the rules and forge new ground during the making of “The Rebel.”

Sharing his dream

Halfway through the 80-day shoot of “The Rebel,” Charlie began deviating from the censored screenplay. He knew officials expected him to follow the script verbatim and that there were cultural policemen assigned to his set to ensure that was happening. Yet he felt strongly that he needed to take necessary detours.

Charlie is known for writing new, impromptu dialogue on notepads, even beverage napkins, during the middle of a shoot then handing them over to the actors to improvise with the camera rolling. This is incredibly daring in the context of his working environment. Had he been unlucky, authorities could have closed down the million-dollar, multinational filming production of “The Rebel.” He was willing to risk it for the sake of making the best film possible.

For five days in a row, he invited the point person from the cultural police to witness the deviations he took from the original screenplay, saying they were needed to make the product better. He explained to this man what he was trying to recreate in film, the storyline that was stewing in his mind. Sure enough, he not only convinced the first officer but all the subsequent ones spanning a shoot that lasted more than two months.

“Charlie is quite talented; it’s evident in ‘The Rebel,’ ” Dustin Nguyễn said. “And more importantly, he is a true gentleman. Charlie is willing to listen to input from everyone on his creative team, an important quality of any director. He may or may not agree with you, but he listens. The shoot of ‘The Rebel’ was very difficult on all levels.” Charlie “was grace under fire.”