By Brian Thomas

We’ve all had the usual doses of pain growing up. In junior high, you jumped off the end of the bleachers, intending to impress your friends by sticking a perfect landing. Instead, you had to stifle a scream as you felt a stinging shock up your ankles, shins, and knees. You slid into third base, skinning your elbows and bumping your chins. You bruised your eye and cheek in some sort of sparring match. You mishandled a knife and sliced open your thumb. Now, imagine this happening to you all in one day. Add in assorted aches and sprains, and you’re just starting to get an idea of what it’s like to be a Hong Kong stuntman.

From various behind-the-scenes programs, we’re all familiar with the kind of stunt and fight choreography engaged in by the average Hollywood stuntman—the usual jumps, chases, blocks, and punches are run through with little variation and plenty of attention to safety precautions. Not so in Hong Kong.

Since the 1960s, Hong Kong action movies have presented a highly energized and widely diverse type of martial arts action entertainment. To accomplish this, the filmmakers need a seemingly endless supply of men and women willing to take a punch, kick, or fall, and still be ready to do a complicated acrobatic maneuver for the next set-up. An American would expect to perform such stunts at a high rate of pay—and with a hefty insurance policy in their back pocket—but Hong Kong stuntmen usually do their jobs for low pay and without insurance coverage.

This is the world captured by Robin Shou in his documentary feature Red Trousers: The Life of the Hong Kong Stuntmen. After earning an engineering degree at California State University and winning medals in wushu competitions, Robin Shou Wan-bo made a name for himself as a top stuntman and choreographer in Hong Kong films of the late 1980s. Eventually, his abilities and good looks earned him bigger acting roles. He achieved international recognition for starring in and choreographing fights for the Mortal Kombat movies. Although he’s a star on both sides of the Pacific, Shou maintains close friendships with Hong Kong stunt teams and decided to make his own feature to tell the world their fascinating story.

Red Trousers covers its subject from all angles, jumping from one facet to another. Some old-timers are interviewed about when the Shaw Brothers studio dominated the Hong Kong movie business in the 1960s through the ‘70s. While contract players of Hollywood’s Golden Age complained of studio controls on their careers, contacts for every Shaw employee called for them to live on the Shaw lot. Everyone from stars to gaffers ate and slept in dormitories near the set. Working for independent productions offered more freedom, but the stuntmen often had a tougher life.

Conditions may have improved a bit since the Shaws stopped feature production, with former stuntmen like Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung championing their “little brothers” as they became powerful stars, but the stuntmen generally still face a lot of pain and risk daily without making much money. Shou profiles a few of these performers, including a young married couple who perform stunts while their mate stands in the wings gritting his or her teeth. When one of them is injured, the producers may (or may not) pick up any short-range hospital bills, but there’s still no insurance or job security. Young stunt performers are under constant stress to beat the clock, trying to advance to better jobs as actors or action directors before age or injury catches up to them.

While some stunt-people are athletes or just nuts off the street willing to risk their necks, many enter the job the same way Chan, Hung, and their friends did: From the Chinese opera schools. Unlike its European counterparts, Chinese opera involves more than just singing and acting—performances can involve dancing, juggling, acrobatics, and martial arts, with and without weapons. Performance troupes are trained in private academies, often from a very young age.

Reforms have removed the adoption contracts common in Chan’s opera days, when the masters were given legal right to the lives or deaths of students, but the few schools that remain are still harsh environments that turn out quite a few stunt performers. One of the most touching sequences in Red Trousers involves interviews with students at one of these schools, many of whom break down in tears while contemplating the pressure to make good and provide for their poor families.

But the film isn’t all drama. There’s plenty of interesting behind-the-scenes footage explaining the technical aspects of film fights and stunts. Which brings us to the weakest part of Red Trousers: In order to have full control over filming his documentary, Shou directed and starred in a short action film titled Lost Time, produced specifically to demonstrate certain techniques. Throughout its running time, the documentary cuts to scenes from Lost Time, an action fantasy about a secret war between good and evil factions of super-powered assassins. It’s not a bad little action B-movie, but the trouble is that the documentary is so fascinating, you’re left to squirm in your seat whenever it cuts to the less interesting movie within a movie. Occasionally, the documentary footage dwells on a sequence overlong, but it still keeps your attention.

Overall, Red Trousers is an absorbing account of a subject that can stand further examination, but could have used a lot less Lost Time.

Those who missed Red Trousers in its limited theatrical run can catch it on Tai Seng DVD this spring. Brian Thomas is the author of the massive volume VideoHound’s Dragon: Asian Action & Cult Flicks.