Second day of action
And now the long-awaited day of intense action with my participation has arrived. It started with my friend “perfecting” his “death” scene. When I say “death,” I mean the episode in which the main character finishes us off. This doesn't necessarily mean that we're being killed off in the story, but it most likely means that our on-screen action/combat roles are over. In my friend's case, he gets hit hard with a rubber fist, like he's being knocked out. He told a terrible story about how he was hit for real in order to achieve the necessary effect of “realism.” I had no idea that this was only the beginning of the “massacre”, which would later turn out to be quite realistic. My role was to attack the main character halfway up the stairs, lunging and swinging a metal pole at his head, while flying down the steps, and finally trying to land firmly. The hero dodges all my movements, and then runs along the side wall to the second floor. There were many nuances to this scene that made it difficult to execute it flawlessly and safely.
I had to somehow swing and strike with a long pole, while at the same time running down narrow, uneven metal steps leading in the opposite direction from the hero. My torso was twisting and turning, and my legs were turned in the opposite direction, while I tried to jump down the steps, which I could not look at, because all my attention was focused on the hero. Did I mention that I was holding the pole with both hands, so it would be difficult to grab the railing if I lost my balance and started falling? In addition, the stuntman had to punch another actor approaching from a different direction, dodge my attack, then jump onto the railing, run along the wall, before throwing several prop objects at me. In every take we performed, there was something wrong - either I made a mistake with timing or movements, or the stuntman, or the other actors, or the guys pulling the cables.
Dahai
I finally started working directly with Sammo Hungg's stunt team. We'd seen Sammo on set a couple of times before, and he was fat, as always, but his hair was longer and curlier than I thought. He always had a stern look and was silent. They said he didn't allow anyone to fool around on set, so between shoots we tried to keep our jokes to ourselves. I was mainly under the command of an assistant, Sammo Hungg, nicknamed Dahai (literally translated from Chinese - big sea). His looks and movements made him look like a ninja, ready to settle scores with the enemy at any moment: he wore a knitted hat and a dust mask that covered his entire face except for his constantly sparkling eyes. His eyebrows were knitted together, so he seemed to be constantly frowning. He looked quite young, but his voice was hoarse beyond his age. Dahai was the only person who could explain and show the tricks that we had to perform. If something didn’t suit him, he would run up, grab the props and perform a series of necessary movements himself. As for working with cables, he was unhappy with the way the stuntman jumped and flew up to the second floor, and he did the same stunt without cables, because he wanted to show how it should really look! I also heard that he had previously done a dangerous backflip without any regard for his safety. (On a personal note: I'm very curious who this brave man is! Maybe this is the hope of Hong Kong cinema?)
Incident
When Dahai found out that my name on set was Hua Wujie, he simply called me Ah Jie, and this short name stuck for the rest of my time on set. In this scene, he was unhappy with how far away my pole was from the stuntman's head, so he put his hand on the back of his head so I could aim. He told me to hold the pole higher and positioned the stunt man's head much closer to where the end of the pole should have been. At his signal, I had to lunge as quickly as possible with the pole, and the stuntman had to dodge, then I had to swing, and he had to run away. “Zhunbei”, “Kaiji”, “Xindong” - I did exactly as I was told, and on the count of “san” (three) I lunged with my pole at the place where Dahai pointed me. To my horror, the stuntman reacted a split second slower than me. His head remained motionless for what seemed like an eternity, and I hit him square in the eye with the pole. Somehow he managed to perform the next move and dodge the pole swing, but then he fell to the ground and grabbed his eye, writhing in pain. I was terrified and remained in a stupor for a couple of moments before I came to my senses. Everything stopped, and everyone hurried to the aid of their fallen comrade. I immediately noticed several angry looks from those who saw me as a fool who had injured their brother on the set. However, the others were quick to reassure me that such injuries were common on the set of these types of action films and that I should not take it too personally. The director came up to us to find out what had happened, and out of the corner of my ear I heard him say something about how for some time he believed that filming was continuing, until he realized that an accident had occurred. As the stuntman was being carried away, I quickly apologized to him.
Once everything had calmed down and everyone had come to their senses, Dahai called in another stuntman and we repeated the scene again until it was just right. This time I was careful, I didn't hold the pole so tightly and aimed for his cheek in case of another mistake. I will always keep these kinds of safety details in mind in my future films. We finished filming the scene without any incident. A couple of hours later, the injured stuntman reappeared on set, and I again apologized profusely to him, but he said that he was fine: his lower eyelid was swollen, but his vision was not affected. Luckily for this scene I used a rubber pole and not a metal one.
To be continued ...
Posted by Keoni Everington
Source: theworldofchinese.com
Translation: DoD Favorit and EvilDollaR
Special thanks to DoD Favorit
Good and not so good news: the slow distribution company Well Go USA has purchased the rights to distribute the first part in the United States and Canada. The release should take place in early 2013. Well, at least the Chinese version will be released in the summer, according to the director.
some photo is not convincing
If the uniform confuses you, then I advise you to read the first 2 parts.