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Review | Stuntman movie review: Tung Wai leads passionate homage to Hong Kong action filmmaking

Veteran action choreographer Tung Wai plays washed-up action director Lee Sam, who returns for one last film collaboration

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Tung Wai as Lee Sam (left) and Terrance Lau as Lee Sai-long in a still from Stuntman (category IIB, Cantonese), directed by Albert Leung and Herbert Leung. Philip Ng co-stars.

3.5/5 stars

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One of Hong Kong cinema’s pre-eminent action choreographers flexes his acting chops in a rare leading role perfectly tailored to his skill set in Stuntman, a hugely passionate, if slightly corny, homage to the golden age of the city’s action filmmaking in the 1980s and 90s.

On top of being a luminary in his own field, having picked up seven Hong Kong Film Awards for best action choreography since 1998, Tung Wai has been a familiar face on the big screen since the early 70s, occasionally appearing in supporting or cameo roles (most recently in 2017’s In Your Dreams).

Here Tung, who turned 70 this year, proves himself a capable leading man all over again as Lee Sam, a once-venerable action director who left the film industry to run a bone-setting clinic after he indirectly caused a debilitating injury to a crew member several decades earlier.

That traumatic episode is recounted in Stuntman’s nerve-racking opening scenes, where Sam (played as a young man by Lam Yiu-sing) takes charge of the action scenes of a Police Story-like movie, and sees a take go horribly wrong when he orders a stunt double to jump from a footbridge onto a moving truck.
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