Review of Red Trousers: The Life of the Hong Kong Stuntmen (2003) by Senh D — 18 Apr 2005

Cold Mountain - It's a well made film with good acting and cinematography. It's not my type of movie, but since it was nominated for a bunch of Academy Awards and did nearly $100M at the box office, I wanted to see it. It's a love story set during the Civil War. Jude Law plays a Confederate deserter who must travel through a long distance to return to his love (played by Nicole Kidman) while being persued by Confederate soldiers. Because he's Jude Law, he has to push away advances from various hotties (including Natalie Portman) during his journey. What's interesting and great is the way the love story is told so convincingly despite Jude Law's character being is a man of few words. Renee Zellweger's character also brought some fun to the straight-forward love story.

Red Trousers - Robin Shou's documentary about Hong Kong stuntmen is kinda interesting - although a lot of the stuff seem like something I've already seen or heard from other documentaries on Hong Kong films. The film within the documentary is also really, really bad; the fight choreography is not bad tho. I'm glad it's only used to illustrate the stunts. Still, it kinda feels like the documentary is an after-thought - as if he realized how incredibly bad his film was during shooting so he just kept the behind the scene stuff, added some interviews with a couple high profile stuntmen (Sammo, the Leung family), and turned it into a documentary.

Jackie Chan: My Stunts - Since I reviewed Red Trousers, I might as well review this documentary on the stuntwork on Jackie's films as a comparison. I saw this several years ago. It's simply the best documentary ever made about Hong Kong stuntwork and fight choreography. It's as if you have Jackie Chan, the man responsible for changing the way Hong Kong action films were made, unveiling the magic behind his films. Oh wait, that is Jackie Chan! He not only shows you how some of the stunts in his films were done, but he also shows you how it was edited and where the camera was placed. With Jackie, you get it from different perspectives - as stuntman, director, and editor. As far as documentaries go, this is one of the greats. It's too bad Documentaries weren't that popular then, because this would have scored really well with critics - even though the appeal may not be too wide.