Stunt coordibnator Bruce Law Lai Yin has participated to over 172 film productions. He has worked with well-known directors, such as John Woo (Hardboiled, The Killer & Bullet in The Head), Jackie Chan (Thunderbolt), Tsui Hark (Once Upon a Time In China), Kirk Wong (Crime Story) and Gordon Chan (Final Option).

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Bruce Law has more than 15 years of experience in all aspects of stunt-work. His unique blend of high-action stunt design has made him one of the most acclaimed stunt co-ordinators in Hong Kong. He has set new standards for stunts in the Hong Kong film industry, by using advanced an innovative techniques and digital technology.
Law convinced super stars to perform incredible and dangerous-looking action scenes (Chow Yun Fat, Tony Leung, Leslie Cheung, Andy Lau, Michelle Yeoh and Maggie Cheung). They have never suffered any accident. This is why Bruce Law is so well acclaimed.
His innovative and outstanding work made him many times nominated at Asian film festivals for Best Action Choreography Award (Hong Kong Film Awards and the Taiwan Golden Horse Awards).

Bruce's company, Bruce Law Stunts Unlimited, can offer a complete action package for films, consisting of stuntmen, stunt co-ordinator, and 2nd Unit Director, with a well experienced team. They are able to handle all phases of film production, from directing to camera work, from safety and stunt consultation over fight choreography to post production issues.
In 1998, Bruce Law directed a high-octane action movie, Extreme Crisis that proved his talent as a director and an action director. To get convinced about Bruce's skills, just check out his selected filmography.

The interview has been divided into 2 parts:

Part 1: Presentation - Extreme Crisis - Stuntmen in Hong Kong (1)
Part 2: Stuntmen in Hong Kong (2) - Work with others - Final word

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PRESENTATION OF BRUCE LAW STUNTS LIMITED

HKCinemagic.com : Can you present yourself? What is the Bruce Law Stunts Company?
How many people work for you and what kind of stunts does your company do?
Bruce Law : I think I am capable of handling a variety of action elements from guns and explosions and cars to martial arts, as I was a Thai boxer before I became a stuntman. I began boxing when I was 16, and was the Hong Kong Taekwondo Black belt Champion when I was 18. I then became a professional Thai Boxer, and spent a few years as a coach for both Thai boxing and Taekwondo. The martial arts have certainly helped me get through all kinds of difficulty both physically and mentally.
It is very critical that you have quick response and reaction speed to get you out of harms way, and I think that having this helps me remain connected to the scenes I’m putting together. I think that it’s something that not all directors or choreographers have, but I’ve always been interested in this kind of stuff, I’ve loved cars and bikes ever since I was a kid.

A lot of people even in the film industry don’t know this about me, but I was also a member of the Auxiliary Police Force. I’ve spent so much time handling real guns that I think I can add a more realistic feel when I am shooting a scene with guns for a movie.

The main objective of Bruce Law Stunts Unlimited is to fill the technical gap of action design in the Hong Kong Movie industry. We do the stunts and create the action that others can’t do. There are around 70 members in my stunt team, 2/3 of which are freelance.

HKCinemagic.com : How do you choose the stuntman who will perform the stunt? Do you have some people specialized in one type of stunt in your team (fire, car, motorbike, jumps…) or can they all perform any stunts?
Each of my stuntmen is a specialist in a certain skill, although I do try to teach them a variety of additional skills in other areas of the stunt industry. The Hong Kong Movie Industry is in a bit of a drought at the moment work wise, it would be even harder for my team if they could only perform in one area. But the majority of the most dangerous stunts I prefer to do myself.

I know my stunt team and know whether they can or can’t do a particular stunt. If you’re working with inexperienced stuntmen or stuntmen that you’re not too familiar with, you can tell how much confidence they have by looking at their eyes during rehearsals.

I think one of the most difficult parts of being a stunt co-coordinator is evaluating whether an actor/actress can perform a stunt themselves. The decisions is important, but you can only judge them from their past work and how they handle the rehearsal for the stunt.

HKCinemagic.com : How do you design a stunt? Do you use a storyboard or computer techniques before shooting?
Most of the time we design an action scene tailor made to each film, by studying stunts from films from all around the world, we might take an idea and then put a new twist on it to create something new. In addition to having the imagination to come up with an idea for a stunt, you need to have the professional skills to make it a reality. You also have to be well prepared both mentally and physically.

When designing an impressive or classic stunt for a film, you have to calculate not only the potential danger but also the difficulty of the execution of the stunt, combining that with computer techniques to enhance the stunt and last but by no means least, making it acceptable to the audience.

Quite a lot of my idea for stunts come to be by instinct, I can be driving my car or jogging, and suddenly I get an idea for a stunt or action sequence. I’m a person, who is always thinking, maybe about the storyboard, sometimes about the stunt, sometimes the script, just not all at the same time; I’m a bit uncoordinated sometimes. (Laughing)

I can do the majority of stunts myself such as Car stunts, pyrotechnic effects, fire stunts, explosions, body burns, martial arts and fight choreography and so on. You might not believe this but most of the latest explosive designs in Hong Kong films are my designs. Traditionally stunt teams would estimate how big an explosion should be and how much explosive material should be used, just by using their hands and their eyes. But me and my team, we use a special electronic weighing machine so we can calculate the exact amount of pyrotechnic material to use.

When we were filming Gunmen for Kirk Wong, I was in charge of my first fire scene and it was also the first one to have 5 separate people on fire in one scene in Hong Kong. I was the pioneer for using the LPG (Liquid Petroleum Gas) for fireballs and also using a single remote control to conduct the fire in the whole scene.

In the past it was impossible to work out the computer techniques before shooting, but now some of the companies are using the computers to design the fire stunts. I think that in the future it will become quite commonplace to use computer effects when shooting, so I have to understand both the traditional and new ways of doing a stunt so I can tie the two of them together synchronizing the virtual effect and the real person. I think that working with both computer and human effects is the best way to achieve the best results, taking the best of both worlds and combining them for the best final result.

I pay a lot of attention to computer techniques, when working on a bigger movie I will work out a lot of the action design and choreography using computers and storyboards. It is important to have a solid blueprint for the way you want the action to look including: the graph of effects, floor plan, iconography, action analysis before you begin shooting so we can compare and arrange the time slots and angles. This allows us to be able to work out everything at the same time.

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EXTREME CRISIS

HKCinemagic.com : In Extreme Crisis, you use very modern techniques and digital effects. There is this very impressive stunt in Central where an explosion sends in the air a few cars and makes them do a 360° spin. You did this stunt without any authorization, didn't you?
Did you have problems with the police afterwards? Can you elaborate?
Bruce Law : Actually, Extreme Crisis didn’t use much modern technology or digital effects. I only used digital effects on the explosion outside of the building during the finale, a shot inside the canal and one or two shots of Chueng Chi-lam inside the cage winch. Everything else was shot on actual locations.

The 360’ spin of the cars in Central is a stereotype. I had been planning and preparing, testing for ths stunt for more than half a year before I began shooting. The explosions and fire encircling the men were real, I didn’t use digital effects as I thought they would look rather fake.

I know that most of the companies in Hollywood will use digital effects to enhance a stunt, and I know how to make these effects too, but we just didn’t have the budget. Also, we believe that digital effects still lack the feeling of realism. If we can handle the "risks", we should make it real. Of course some scenes and effects can only be made in the digital world. If your budget isn’t capable of allowing the best level of special effects possible, leave them out or you will disappoint the audience and yourself.

HKCinemagic.com : Actress Shu Qi didn't have a driving license when you made Extreme Crisis and she is not a stuntwomen. How did you manage to make Shu Qi drive and perform a dangerous car stunt in the beginning of the movie?
(Laughing) She can’t drive at all, let alone perform any kind of stunt driving! It’s just like Michelle Yeoh when we worked together on Police Story 3: Supercop, she had only learnt how to ride a motorcycle the day before we shot her big stunt. I broke down the shots so we could make her look comfortable riding the jump as well as performing the stunt. For her jump onto the train, I put her on a wire and she made it! Of course being able to spend one day teaching her to ride was a great help.

This is the art of making movies, it’s like magic! Presenting something impossible to the audience, the audience doesn’t pick up on your enhancement, they think it’s all-real and I win! They know I’ve enhanced the action wires or something and I lose.

I used a V-Bar dragging the car for the shooting of Extreme Crisis, I had designed the shots and the sequence thoroughly beforehand. I think it is our responsibility to make the audience believe that she can really drive, not just for her stunt, and with the right edits and shots you can make it look real.

HKCinemagic.com : Extreme Crisis is the first movie you have directed. Why did you want to direct a movie? Was it hard to work as a director and as a stunt co-coordinator in the same time?
I think that it’s a common dream for most of the people in this business. After all these years of working in this environment, I have a lot of stories, and ideas that I want to share with the audience. And stunts and action scenes have their own beauty in story telling. It’s a chance for movie makers to make their first steps into the worldwide marketplace.

It is also very hard and frustrating to be both director and stunt co-coordinator at the same time. In addition to all the sections of filmmaking that I’m used to such as stunts and action design, there are things I have to do that I am not so familiar with, such as directing the dramatic parts of the film and that was not as much fun for me! It would have been nice to have an action director to work with who had the same ideas and skills as me, it would have made it easier for me to concentrate on the drama! (Laughing)

A new director needs a lot of support and assistance when making a film. Although the director of a film may be regarded as the captain of the ship, to make a movie work you need a good crew, teamwork is essential. I do have to say that even if each group is working properly, it can’t guarantee a perfect movie every time. But I will say that if one of the groups is not working towards the same aims as the others, then the whole movie is in trouble.

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STUNTMEN IN HONG KONG

HKCinemagic.com : You made a breakthrough in the stuntman world of Hong Kong by introducing new techniques and methods.
What were the main elements missing in stunts before the improvements you brought to the film industry?
Bruce Law : I haven’t thought about that before, you’ve raised an interesting point and I don’t think anyone in Hong Kong would dare to ask this question.

While Bruce Lee established the international status of Hong Kong movies, he did so in regards to martial arts movies, and while physical stunt work in Hong Kong is of such a high level, there have been other aspects of stunt work that have never been fully explored such as car and explosive stunts. It is much harder for Hong Kong to compete with Hollywood in this area of expertise.

Shoot what you think should be shot, that’s the easiest and most direct way to do things, experiment! Rid all difficulties till your aim achieved. Put your camera where you want and make your imagination into reality.

In Bloody Brotherhood, I used dynamite to turn a car and drop it from 135 feet, I then rolled a mini bus 360 degrees four times. I had only a single remote controlling all the explosions in Road Warriors, I exploded a bike while its rider was on fire in Princess Madam, and I exploded flying bikes and a bike doing a wheelie during Hardboiled. Some of the scenes of people sliding and shooting were also designed by me. I used LPG (Liquid Petroleum Gas) to make a fireball for the first time in The Shootout with Aaron Kwok, and have used them extensively since in such films as Saviour of the Soul, Supercop, and Crime Story. In Twin Dragons, I was only responsible for the explosions and setting the stunt at the pier for the scenes with the stuntman flying off the boat.

I think A Moment Of Romance was just a prelude to Full Throttle for me. I hadn’t had a real chance to fully explore my ideas until Derek Yee made this film. He told me that he wanted something new, not the typical car or motorcycle racing. This was my chance to really push the boundaries and show people what I could do; I spent a lot of time and effort on this film. I spent more than a half a year preparing and testing new equipment to use on this film. I really put my heart and soul into this film, but it was worthwhile, Full Throttle was a serious breakthrough for my career and me, it gave me my first nomination at the Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Action Choreography. And there were no fighting or martial arts scenes in the film, just vehicle action. 1995 was also a bonus year because I had the chance to work on Thunderbolt with Jackie Chan.

To be continued...
>> Part 2

Our greatest thanks to Bruce Law for such kindness and patience.
Thanks extended to Mike Leeder who kindly translated Bruce's statments into English.
Interview made by Thomas Podvin, November 17th, 2003. All rights reserved.

All pictures courtesy Bruce Law Stunts Unlimited.
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