Nicholas Tse of Customs Frontline on adding the job of Action Director to his resume and his “real” stunts

Tse spoke to the Post for this interview shortly before the world premiere of Customs front line at the 26th Far East Film Festival in May in Udine, Italy.

In addition to chases, shootings and fight scenes, Customs front line brings up some unexpected subplots, such as a main character’s bipolar disorder.

“You have to work with people you know,” he says. “Like with the container, when I fell, the choreographer was chasing me.

“I had to trust that he wouldn’t drop the camera or have it land on my face.”

In Customs front lineTse and Yau made a conscious decision to return to the large-scale spectacles of an earlier generation, what Tse calls “traditional Hong Kong action cinema.” The actor performed his own stunts, including several risky underwater sequences, and the filmmakers tried to avoid computer animation as much as possible.

“We were dealing with a lot of heavy machinery,” says Tse. “We work with tonne units. This container weighed 3,400 kg. When you have that much heavy stuff involved, it gets pretty dangerous. We had a long preparation time to blow up a lot of crap.”

In addition to ship collisions and trucks crashing into buildings, Tse staged stunts in which cars fell from the sky and narrowly missed pedestrians.

“It’s all real,” he says. “Real trucks, real ships, real cars. CG has a different tone. I think that’s what makes us go back to Jackie Chan’s style. You hit hard, and if you can’t take it, you leave. That’s how I was raised.”

Tse’s job required a significant amount of planning, from training with his stunt team to testing equipment to camera placement.

“Throughout my career, I’ve had a lot of input into my own action stunts,” he says. “I think this is the first time I’ve been officially credited as a director.”

“So I was very involved when it came to things like positioning the camera or covering the material – although Herman, to be honest, is a real veteran of the genre. He had a lot of input on the camera.”

No amount of preparation can fully prepare stuntmen or women for explosions. Even in Hollywood, most bomb sequences are handled by visual effects teams in post-production. But many of the explosions in Customs front line were real.

“All of these tests are very expensive,” says Tse. “We had to do a lot of preparation and therefore spent a lot of money. But I think it really paid off. There’s a scene in the film – it’s also in the trailer – where I’m about a meter away from the explosion.”

“This film has one of the biggest explosions I’ve ever seen in my life. You have to feel the danger.”

The actor admits that the adrenaline rush is part of the appeal of doing the stunts himself. “A lot of people can do action movies, but if there’s too much CGI involved, then it’s just something that’s done in post-production. It’s not a real action movie.”

He says he did not have to adjust his normal training program for Customs front lineIn fact, Yau Tse sometimes had to restrain himself during filming.

“Because I play a customs officer, Herman didn’t want me to look like a hero,” says Tse. “He wanted the action to be a little more realistic. Whenever I stepped a little too high, he would say, ‘That’s too superhuman.'”

Jackie Chan, who worked with Tse in 2004 New police storyeven asked the aspiring filmmaker to direct a planned sequel, New Police Story 2.

“We’ve always wanted to do a sequel, and for the last two or three years Jackie has been telling me, ‘You be the director,'” says Tse. “I think it’s very difficult to be both a director and an actor.”

“I finally told him, ‘OK, I’ll direct if you produce.’ We’re still developing the script.”

In addition to his film career, Tse has opened a number of restaurants and developed his own food brand, Chef Nic, in addition to his success as a musician.

“Chef Nic does a very good job,” he says. “It’s all part of the creative process. I like to create things, whether it’s music, movies, stunts or food. I think that impulse is very similar no matter what field I’m working in.”

This was Tse’s first appearance at Udine, the largest Asian film festival in Europe. Yau, a regular visitor, screened three of his films this year.

“It’s an honor to be here,” says Tse. “This festival helps not only Hong Kong films, but all of Asian cinema.”

“It’s a great opportunity to connect with the world and showcase our films.”

What is the current state of the film industry in Hong Kong?

“We are in desperate times,” says Tse. “As things stand, I think things can only get better. That’s part of what drives me.”

“I want to bring everything I know to the table. That’s why I run into explosions and blow up things that I’m in. It takes more than computer graphics to get through to the audience.”