The cinematic daredevils known as stuntmen are destined to a life in the shadows of the movie world's glitz and glam, and a veteran stunt artist says the low pay keeps most from living normal lives.
Young boys the world over dream of becoming their favorite death-defying heroes from the silver screen, often testing their own skills at home by dressing up in capes and costumes and leaping off makeshift ramps on bicycles and roller skates. But few of them ever get to live that dream the way a stuntman does, testing his own limits by leaping through flames and hurling jump kicks every day.
However, the dream is not without its sacrifices.
Becoming a stunt-double posing as the risk-taking adventurers and swashbuckling criminals of popular action movies requires a kind of mental and physical flexibility few posses.
There is no easy way to get stunt work. There's no formal degree you can earn or any industry-accepted standard methodology to approach the job. Senior Vietnamese stuntman Quoc Thinh says a long apprenticeship with an experienced stunt person is the most common way to become a stuntman.
Thinh, 36, began his stunt career as a freshman electrical engineering student at the University of Fisheries in 1992. With a background in Vovinam and Binh Dinh martial arts from an early age, Thinh was enchanted by the Hong Kong martial art movies he saw on TV as a child.
At that time, Vietnamese producers like Ly Huynh had begun co-operating with Hong Kong and Chinese film studios to produce exhilarating action movies such as Hong Hai Tac in 1996 (Red Pirates). It was then that Thinh first began studying as an assistant stunt director with a Chinese studio working in Vietnam.
Unsung heroes
Thinh describes the stuntman as "the man in the dark," an unknown performer who tempts danger everyday without the rewards of fame, fortune or glory.
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Stuntmen Thanh Son and The Hoang practice at Phu My Hung in District 7. Most stuntmen are only able to make around VND1.2 million (US$64) per month, not enough for most to support families in the big city. |
He says they get their happiness from a job well done, however thankless. Thinh founded his own stunt team, one of the best in Vietnam, in 1997, but no one knows Thinh or his partners' names or faces.
"The goal here isn't only to accomplish the highest jump, the biggest explosion or most tragic car crash, but to create a realistic visual effect on film by performing a carefully choreographed and planned sequence," he says.
But Thinh says doing small jobs in music videos or live performances is the only way most of his colleagues can earn a living.
Though Thinh's group has worked with film companies from across the globe – Germany, France, India and the US – he says that nearly two thirds of his 50-person team are able to support themselves as stuntmen and stuntwomen.
Another senior stuntman is Lu Dac Long, 44, who has spent nearly 22 years on the job. Long is the vice president of HCMC's Cascadeur Club, founded in 2005 under the HCMC Cinema Association.
Long's club offers free stunt training at Tao Dan Stadium on HCMC's 1 Huyen Tran Cong Chua Street.
Long also lamented that stunt-work does not provide enough money to cover everyday needs. So he also works as a photographer while many of his colleagues have part-time gigs acting in minor parts in films or as bodyguards and photojournalists.
Long, one of The Gioi Dien Anh (World of Cinema) Magazine's feature photographers, said it was stunt work that first turned him on to photojournalism.
Hard knock life
In Vietnam, a stuntman is paid an average of VND300,000 (US$16) per day for a TV series and VND500,000 ($26.7) a day for music videos and movies. Most are only able to make around VND1.2 million ($64) per month, not enough for most to support families in the big city.
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Senior Vietnamese stuntman Quoc Thinh (R). Thinh describes the stuntman as "the man in the dark." Despite running one of the best stunt teams in Vietnam, no one recognizes Thinh or his partners' names or faces. |
Thinh laments that it is easy for filmmakers to pay their stunt people so little in Vietnam.
"Foreign film producers pay up to $200 to $400 per day," he says.
He says his group has thus established a fund, into which each member commits 5 percent of their earnings per month. The fund is used to help members out when things get rough, particularly medically, as no stunt person can perform when they're not in tip-top shape.
"The fund comes in very handy. This is a risky business and always will be," says Thinh.
He says stunt workers have no official national association and therefore lacked national health insurance policies and the stability needed to live a normal life. Many stunt people thus remain single and don't start families.
But Thinh also says the stunt community is like a family.
When stuntman Tran Nhu Thuc recently succeeded in performing three increasingly dangerous car stunts, the entire team burst into tears as he came out unscathed.
Thinh is now investing his hopes for the future in a young group of students at Hong Bang University. He's taken the Hong Bang Stunt Club under his wing and works tirelessly to teach the rookies the tricks of the trade.
He hopes the youngsters, who are already earning money as part time stunt-doubles, will usher in a brighter future for the stunt-person community in Vietnam.
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THE HOLLYWOOD KID |
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 In the US, the "best of the best" in several different fields have flocked to the stuntman profession: martial artists, motorbike tricksters, racecar drivers and even veteran commandos in the military.
Johnny Tri Nguyen, a martial artist of Vietnamese descent who rose to the top of the stuntman ranks in "Spider Man" and "Spider Man 2", says there's a lot of competition for just a few jobs.
He says the top most-talented stunt people earn between US$50,000 and over $1 million a year in Hollywood.
"Stunt work is a real performing art; it is not like a daredevil act," said Nguyen, who gained fame in Vietnam as the leading actor and fight-sequence director of the Vietnamese Kung-Fu historical drama "The Rebel" in 2007.
"We stuntmen are brave but we don't joke around with our lives."
He says the most important thing in the Hollywood stunt industry is respecting the principles of safe professionalism and ensuring that filmmakers provide group insurance packages for all stunt people.
Last Christmas, he starred in the action hit "Clash", which he also did the stunt direction for. The film has been invited to participate in the Tribeca Film Festival this April. |
Reported by Kim
