April 2009

Action Boys (Director: Jung Byung-gil): If you’ve ever wanted to know more about the guys who do the crazy stunts in Asian action and mar­tial arts films, Action Boys is for you. But instead of telling us how they do their incred­ible stunts, the film is more inter­ested in who they are when they’re not crashing cars or swinging swords. Director Jung Byung-gil is a 2004 graduate of the Seoul Action School, a rig­orous six-month training pro­gram for tele­vi­sion and film stuntmen, and the film is more like his per­sonal tribute to the friends he made there, even though most have not gone on to pro­fes­sional stunt work. Out of his class of 34, fewer than half com­pleted the training and at the time of filming in 2008, only three were actu­ally working as stuntmen.

Byung-gil him­self gave up stunt work for dir­ecting almost imme­di­ately, and it was his 2004 short film Standing on the Edge of a Sword that served as a sort of visual year­book and demo reel for all of his class­mates. We see some of that impressive footage but it’s bal­anced by hil­arious excerpts from the audi­tion tapes from all the main players in the film. Jin-seok was a former boxer (and hairdresser!) with six-pack abs. Sung-il was admitted, according to the school’s dir­ector, based on his good looks alone. And Gui-deok, des­pite an inaus­pi­cious audi­tion, has become the most accom­plished member of their class, and a spe­cialist in car stunts. These are the three who con­tinue to make their living as stuntmen. And then there’s the hap­less Sye-jin, who has failed to settle into any career at all, but who still tags along with the others like a lost puppy. He provides plenty of comic relief, but so does dir­ector Byung-gil, whose self-deprecation adds a con­sid­er­able amount of charm.

Although there are plenty of stunts on dis­play, this is mostly an unstruc­tured record of the ups and downs of a group of very close friends, some of whom happen to put their lives in danger every day. Invisible com­pared to the actors they stand in for, the Action Boys finally have the spot­light shone on them by someone who has been there. Theirs is a pro­fes­sion where, as Gui-deok says, they feel pain but are not allowed to express it, and this applies to more than just phys­ical pain. Apart from their close friend­ships with each other, the men find it hard to main­tain rela­tion­ships, since they are often called away at a moment’s notice to film a scene. For this reason, as well as all the phys­ical injuries they accu­mu­late, most don’t last very long in the busi­ness. Jung Byung-gil’s camera is able to cap­ture this giddy and tumul­tuous time in the lives of some of his closest friends, and it makes for a com­pel­ling film.

Because it’s such a per­sonal film, though, it can tend to sprawl a bit, and in true Korean fashion, there’s a strong under­cur­rent of sen­ti­ment­ality (accom­panied by some cheesy tinkly piano music every now and then). It’s lightened con­sid­er­ably by lots of self-deprecating humour, and an inter­esting dir­ect­orial decision to employ a female voi­ceover. Other very minor quibbles: in places, the sub­titles fly by pretty quickly, and a few of the minor char­ac­ters are easy to get con­fused. I’m a bit dis­ap­pointed not to be seeing this with an audi­ence, though, because I think this feel-good tribute to some of film’s unsung heroes is the sort of exper­i­ence that’s best enjoyed with an appre­ci­ative crowd. My pre­dic­tion: look for this to be in the run­ning for the Audience Award.

(8/10)

Tagged as: #hotdocs09, korea, stuntmen

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