It’s safe to say that many people don’t know the works behind their actual favorite movie, let alone care about it.However, one thing for sure, the film industry is not just about handsome actors or beautiful actresses. It’s also not just about directors and producers. There are many staff who work behind the scenes to ensure the movie is well-made. For example, in action movies in particular, stuntmen also play a crucial role in bringing a movie to life. Stuntmen risk their lives to make movies more exciting and dramatic for the audience.

How much knowledge do you have about the work of stuntmen? Can just anyone be a stuntman?

Super Action is a Korean series that is attempting to shed light on stuntmen and the work goes behind action movies. It is an on-air and on-going series starring six stuntmen's groups who compete to win the challenges in Super Action. These stuntmen are not just stuntmen, one of the group won an Emmy award because of their work in The Squid Game. The rest are also frequent in many Korean movies. So far there are 5 episodes and the first episode was an introduction of the groups. The groups are Orthodox, Best, Mongdol, 9stunt, Freedom, and Born. As these groups introduced themselves, they also mentioned that each individual is good at either taekwondo, parkour or former sport athlete. Viewers will be shown their base camp which is mostly a gym-like place where they train. It was interesting to note that each group of stuntmen had their own areas of expertise, such as disaster movies, knife and gun work, or historical movies. In this series, they will be given challenges that may be outside of their usual scope of work. During the introduction, one part that was intriguing was how the famous acting song-joong-ki mentioned that one of the members of 9Stunt Yoon Ki Hyun was helping him during one of his famous Descendant of The Sun.his was the first time I realized that behind the impressive action scenes in movies, there are stuntmen who ensure that the action is performed safely and often work harder than the main actors. At the same time,they often don't receive the credit they deserve, and this is something that I appreciate about the series.

Behind-the-scenes and live action

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In the second episodes, the challenge in super action was to make a remake and interpretation of 3 movies. Each group was given an option to remake the movie and add their style into it. From this episode, we all can learn that the stuntmen take time to perform their action, they also have to be well-coordinated, swift and able to endure a certain pain. One thing that intrigued me was that they were required to know how to direct, shoot, and edit videos. It was like they were all-rounded and had to know-it-all. So, during the first challenge, it was even more interesting to me that they were mentioning some techniques used in stunt movie works. One in particular was the on fire scene which I think was an extreme. Apparently, in these stunts, they have something called water gel, which prevents them from burning as they were torched alive. The judges were also introduced where I spot my favorite actor, Jang Hyuk, who frequents action, crime, and gang movies. He mentioned in the episode that he likes to go into details when it comes to action and stunts. Oftentimes, he also advised people about it. He said that it can be annoying for some.I certainly agree that he was a good fit as the judge in this series. Jang Hyuk also mentioned that his judgment will focus on how the stuntmen are able to create something that could relate to the viewers.

In the following episodes, the series touched on the techniques, props, and other aspects of stunt work. It was impressive to see the physically demanding yet interesting work that these people do. Stuntmen are not often talked about, and many people are unaware of their contributions to the film industry. However, they can play a significant role in the success of a movie. If you want to watch this, you can watch it on VIU.

I am not sure if that is available for non-membership/premium accounts but once again, this is an interesting series that I think is worth watching. It has some insightful information and you can learn something new especially as a cinephile.