Red Trousers: Without a net

Red Trousers

By Jeannette Catsoulis

Compared with their Hong Kong counterparts, Hollywood stuntmen are quite the mama's boys. Protected by a powerful union, stringent safety regulations, ample compensation and the most advanced equipment money can buy, this cosseted elite wouldn't endure for one second the conditions set forth in the lively documentary Red Trousers.

Written and directed by action star Robin Shou (Mortal Kombat), the movie interviews a parade of (mostly unknown) Hong Kong stuntmen, who recount mangled-leg and pulverized-bone stories with lip-smacking relish and gleeful pride. As we breathlessly watch men (and women) dive from highway overpasses onto moving trucks and slide off roofs onto concrete floors, it becomes clear that more than financial constraints are at work here. These people are fiercely proud of their disdain for padding and trickery; if you want someone to smash into a wall at 20 mph, by God, they'll do it--often for $25 a day.

Though modern Hong Kong stuntmen are mostly drawn from the ranks of martial-arts specialists, the original daredevils were acrobats trained as children by the Chinese opera houses. (Their traditional red trousers are the source of the film's title.) Rigid and often brutal, the training produced young adults skilled in singing, dancing, martial arts and acrobatics, providing careers in film and honor for their families. Legends like Sammo Hung (who is interviewed) and Jackie Chan (who is inexplicably absent) were both products of these schools.

As exciting as all these death-defying stunts are, Red Trousers is an undisciplined and superficial testimony to a breed of performer who deserves better. The omission of Chan, as well as the legendary Shaw studios (whose title card graces Kill Bill), is unforgivable, as is the paucity of footage from early films. Instead, Shou inserts his own undistributed short film, Lost Time--purportedly to illustrate specific stunts but really to showcase his own material. He'd better watch out; in Hong Kong, unlike Hollywood, stuntmen are permitted to punch the stars.

The passion of the putt

"He played Jesus, now he's playing God," remarked a waggish colleague on our way to the screening of the golfing biopic Bobby Jones, Stroke of Genius. And after enduring 133 minutes of Jim Caviezel's single, blank expression--he's in almost every scene--I'm beginning to suspect that his role as the former delivered one too many bonks on the head.

Golf movies are, for obvious reasons, few and far between. Even Robert Redford's The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) needed Matt Damon and a huge dollop of mysticism to gain any kind of audience. Rowdy Herrington's glossy take on Jones--the legendary 1920s grand slam winner who retired as an amateur at age 28--has neither of those things; instead, it has Caviezel, a saintly attitude and some of the worst dialogue ever committed to film.

Whether romancing his future wife (Claire Forlani, with little to do except look pained) or competing against celebrity golfer Walter Hagen (a devilish Jeremy Northam, who should have been given the lead), Caviezel's face cracks only when suffering the stomach cramps, varicose veins and club-throwing bouts of temper that plagued his game. As written, the character veers from infantile tantrums to holier-than-thou speeches about the evils of money (his reason for refusing to turn pro); as played by Caviezel, he's as impenetrable as the St. Andrews clubhouse on tournament weekends.