Watch the trailer.
Opening with a sardonic account of the director’s own history of unwarranted self-confidence (it involves art school, military service, being made redundant, being dumped by various girlfriends and idolizing Stephen Chow), Jung Byung-Gil’s hair-raising documentary proceeds to explore what makes a certain type of young man try for a career as a stunt man. Of the 36 who apply for places in Seoul Action School (run by stunt directors Kim Kyung-Tae and Kim Won-Joong), around half drop out within a month and only three find anything like regular work in the film industry. Glimpses of the shooting of movies like
City of Violence and
The Host reveal very clearly why the rate of attrition is so high. Teeth are knocked out, limbs and backs are broken, and eventually there’s a fatal accident.
But this is neither an exposé of film industry malpractice nor a fan-boy celebration of macho risk-taking. And it’s not a behind-the-scenes documentary either, much less a promo for Korean movies. The consistently wry and often sarcastic narration pushes it in a quite different direction: towards an understanding of the physiological and psychological dimensions. Without being pretentious about it,
Action Boys is interested in bodies: how they are shaped, buckled and broken, how they can be used to earn a living, and how they reflect their owners’ aspirations and ambitions. Sexuality doesn’t come into it, but masochism surely does. This is rarely explored territory, and the film tackles it with great flair, energy and good humour. You can see why it won the Audience Award at the Jeonju Festival.
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