WITH HIS LIGHTNING-QUICK reflexes and unflappable air, Leung Ka-hung still has all the requisites for the job. The 41-year-old is one of Hong Kong's stunt professionals - people who make a living by being blown up, leaping from rooftops and crashing cars at high speed, all in the name of movie entertainment.
But after 18 years in the job, Leung is anxious. Like many of his fellow professionals, he fears the work will dry up as a protracted slump in the local industry, advances in computer graphics and competition from the mainland reduce demand for their skills.
Seeing the writing on the wall, Leung took a job at local station Television Broadcasts (TVB) six years ago, where he performs stunts for martial arts dramas. Television work ensures more stable earnings even if it doesn't pay as well as movies and there's greater attention to safety, he says - but the job security is not much better.
'I'm worried [about my job],' he says. He's getting older and can't match younger men for strength and dexterity, he says. More immediately, 'a lot of dramas are being filmed on the mainland now, and, obviously, they will hire mainland stuntmen because they're cheaper'.
Still, stunts for the television station are generally safer. 'Big companies are more concerned about accidents and compensation, which mean more costs,' Leung says. 'If you get hurt while working for a small film company, you may not get any compensation.'
Local stuntmen first began to draw attention in the 1970s, when action superstar Bruce Lee helped whet a global appetite for martial arts. Suddenly, audiences in Asia and the west couldn't get enough of action movies, and there was no shortage of work for the growing number of stuntmen in the city.
