Filipino filmmaker and director Lester Pimentel Ong shares his journey from martial arts to directing hit action series like ‘One Good Day’ and ‘Incognito’
Lester Pimentel Ong’s path to filmmaking was anything but conventional. A decorated wushu athlete and a former member of the national team, he spent his early life in training halls and competition arenas, not film schools. His mastery of Chinese martial arts, however, would become the unlikely gateway into cinema. He started as a stuntman and from there, he moved through the ranks: choreographer, action director, second-unit director—until, after two decades behind the fight sequences that defined an era of Filipino television, he finally took his place in the director’s chair.
His breakthrough arrived with One Good Day, an Amazon Prime Video original that starred Ian Veneracion. For Ong, it was not merely another action series but the culmination of years refining a system for staging fights on screen. The series also marked a turning point for the visibility of Filipino directors in a media landscape increasingly dominated by Korean and Hollywood content. From One Good Day flowed other milestones: ABS-CBN’s The Iron Heart and the action-thriller Incognito, projects that cemented Ong’s reputation for marrying cinematic scale with distinctly Filipino storytelling.
Now more than 25 years into his career, Ong continues to define himself. Drawing inspiration from Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola as much as from Zhang Yimou and Jackie Chan, he describes his approach as a fusion of Western narrative craft and Asian flair. Collaborative by nature, he likens directing to conducting an orchestra, bringing together actors, writers, cinematographers and editors to create a seamless whole. Yet behind the artistry lies a pragmatism sharpened by competition and constraints: working against limited budgets, Ong has learned to “value-engineer” productions so that every shot carries weight. It is this balance of creativity and discipline, spectacle and restraint, that has shaped his journey—and which continues to guide his ambitions for Filipino cinema on the global stage.
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How did your journey into filmmaking begin? Was directing always something you envisioned for yourself?
Actually, I came a long way, and directing was not something I originally envisioned. It has been a long journey to get here. To give you a quick summary, I was a martial artist in the sport of wushu—Chinese martial arts. I was a member of the national team.
By being a national athlete, I met a lot of people from the film industry from different countries. After retiring from martial arts, many of them went into the film industry: some became actors, stunt performers or action directors. That opened the opportunity for me to enter the industry.
I started out by moonlighting as a stuntman in different films, mostly foreign productions being shot in the Philippines, because of my skill set as a martial artist. This was around 1998, 1999, 2000. Back then, my skills in wushu were not really needed in the local film industry, which used a different style of action. My skills were instead seen in Japanese, Hong Kong or Singaporean films, which required more martial arts-based action.
Later on, I became an action choreographer. I would choreograph fight scenes for local TV series and films, teach the actors and work with the director. Eventually, I became an action director or second-unit director for projects I was involved in. After almost 20 years of working as an action director, I finally became a director. I’ve now been in the industry for more than 25 years.
What project would you consider your breakthrough as a director? What made it a defining moment in your career?
I directed and produced an Amazon Prime series called One Good Day. It’s available on Amazon Prime Video. That was my breakthrough as a director because it was the project where I perfected how to create an action series. We were able to design a system of work that elevated the quality of the action.
One Good Day starred Ian Veneracion, and I worked with my action team. That same team later created Iron Heart for ABS-CBN and also Incognito. For me, One Good Day was really the turning point because we were able to show that Filipino action series could reach international quality.
Related: Ian Veneracion talks about One Good Day, his action series on Amazon Prime Video
