Big money, questionable financial dealings and undercover operations by business intelligence unit Black Cube — just another day in the industry, or the screenplay for a blockbuster?
Nobu Su biopic, The Outsider, which premieres in London this week before going on iTunes and DVD release, has all of the above and much more.
Perhaps it turned into something a bit more personal than Today Makes Tomorrow chief Su envisaged when he set out to make a film to explain how RBS “robbed” him of millions of dollars.
“No one believes me, so I want to prove it," Su says at the outset.
Director and producer Thomas Meadmore, who was asked to make the film by Tempo Productions, describes his first on-set encounters with Su as “madness”. After arriving in Taipei, Meadmore was taken on a 10-day odyssey to Singapore and then Dubai.
The film opens with chaotic shots of Su trying to access a hatch on one of his “whale” ships in Drydocks World and being told firmly by a yard official that he cannot go in there.
Spoiler alert — throughout the film Su continues to show up uninvited and creates mayhem at the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and his daughter’s graduation, among other events.
“I’m a street kid,” Su reiterates throughout the film, saying he learns on the job and is going to “get justice”.
Meadmore had full editorial control over his work and found Su an endearing character. It was while filming the Dubai moment that he realised he had to roll with it and “make the chaos the story”.
But he has done much more, convincing Su to give a fascinating insight into his family history, the influence of his father, the collapse of his marriage and his relationship with his two daughters — at times with the strains of some heart-tugging violins.
Industry voices and journalists pepper the narrative — TradeWinds chose not to participate — to give other perspectives.
There are scenes that will make some wince: Su boasting of making billions on forward freight agreements; going out to ships at anchor off Singapore and randomly calling up a vessel on the radio; archive footage of him trying to get one of his whale ships to suck up oil as the master warns him he was putting the vessel at risk.
But then there is a compelling clip in which freelance journalist Seth Freedman garners evidence on the RBS case that appears to lend support to Su’s story.
Su gets his money’s worth. The Outsider is almost two hours long and just when the end is nigh, it lurches on to Su’s battles with Taiwan’s Mega International Commercial Bank.
And that might not be the end of the tale. Su gives more details in his forthcoming book The Goldman From The East. Meadmore says Su has acquired a taste for film-making now and believes The Outsider II is on the cards.
