Wang Chenglong Photo: Courtesy of Wang

 

Du Yiheng Photo: Courtesy of Du

He isn't quite a household name yet, but the 1978-born Chinese mainland actor Du Yiheng has already worked with big-name directors and actors, such as Jiang Wen, Tsui Hark and Jet Li.

Trained as a dancer, Du started his career as a martial arts stuntman. But in recent years, Du has started to appear with his own name in many popular film and TV dramas like Let the Bullets Fly (2010) and Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (2010).

Not everyone is as lucky as Du. Among the vast army of body doubles, many find themselves trapped behind the radiance of stars. Their work can provide a foot in the door, or keep them in the shadow of other actors.

Performing as a shadow

Though generally grouped together under the title of "body double," there are many classifications for different types of body doubles. For example, a wuti, or martial arts stuntman or stuntwoman, comes in for fierce fight scenes. A stand-in plays more often as an actor's back or profile. Stand-ins can be further divided into hand doubles (useful when an actor needs to show a pair of beautiful hands skillfully playing an instrument), foot doubles and butt doubles, who do nude to semi-nude scenes.

Martial arts stuntmen and stuntwomen work under the most dangerous conditions and must be skilled in martial arts, so they enjoy a loftier status among their body double peers.

Zhang Xiaonan, 28, has been working as a martial arts stuntman since 2008. His films include Hong Kong action feature Bodyguards and Assassins (2009), suspenseful TV drama Detective Fiction (2010) and historical TV drama All Men Are Brothers (2011).

To be more precise, as he wrote in an e-mail to the Global Times, after graduating from a sports school, Zhang started as a wuhang, someone who plays minions often being beaten by the hero. He then had opportunities to do fight scenes for more well-known actors such as Tou Chung Hua and Feng Yuan-zheng before he became an assistant stunt coordinator.

Martial arts stunt performers can rise through the ranks to become the director of action scenes in a crew. A lucky few may become action stars like Jet Li and Donnie Yen.

"Many come with the hope of becoming a star. So did I," martial arts director Sun Mengfei told the Global Times in a phone interview.

Compared with other jobs like security guards and martial arts instructors, he said, martial arts stuntmen and stuntwomen can be paid more and have a more flexible schedule.

The monthly salary for a martial arts body double varies, but is generally between 6,000 yuan ($985) to 10,000 yuan, according to Sun.

The money isn't easy, though. Zhang recalled the hardest time he's experienced as a martial arts stuntman, from a fight scene done in water for All Men Are Brothers.

"It was near the Spring Festival. We wore heavy helmets and armor, and I fought until my body went stiff," he said. "When the scene was over, we ran under the shooting lights and drank ginger soup or liquor to warm our bodies."

"Our bodies are often covered in bruises, which neither our family nor the audience can see," he said.

Advances in special effects now allow stuntmen and stuntwomen to take the place of on-screen actors in fight scenes more than ever, giving martial arts performers fewer opportunities to become a star in their own right.

"They prefer to use well-known faces," Sun said.

A black mark?

While martial arts stunt actors were very willing to share their stories with the public, stand-in actors were far more reluctant to identify themselves. And for nude doubles, it is often hard for them to be acknowledged at all for their work.

In an interview with Southern Metropolis Entertainment Weekly, an industry insider going by the name W said that no matter how talented a body double may be, all the credit still goes to the movie star.

Shao Xiaoshan, who was actress Zhang Ziyi's double for nude scenes in Feng Xiaogang's The Banquet (2006), is one of those who does not readily identify herself as a body double. According to Southern Metropolis Entertainment Weekly, she emphasized many times that she "is not a full-time butt double but a full-time actress."

Though Shao may often be troubled by the kind of attention being the nude double for Zhang can bring her, many nude scene doubles are not even known by the public.

Entertainment portal ent.qq.com interviewed another nude scene double, who was identified as Mengyao.

"I do not want to let people know I am a body double for nude scenes," she said. "I make a living from my youth, which is only a few years."

Luck of the look-alike

Because of his striking similarity to Hong Kong singer and actor Nicholas Tse, Wang Cheng-long began imitating him on variety shows. One of his most famous performances as Tse was on CCTV's Kaimen Daji.

After being a double for Tse in The Bullet Vanishes (2012), Wang said he better understood the need for doubles.

"(Stars) are on a very tight shooting schedule. There needs to be someone doing some back shots or light tests for them," Wang told the Global Times.

A fan of Tse since boyhood, Wang said he felt lucky to work with his idol.

Zhang said he does not feel unhappy about being an unrecognized stand-in, either.

"It's our job. Though we cannot see our faces [on screen], we can still see our backs," he said.

At 2 in the afternoon, Du returns from filming a scene, his face still made up. Before having a late lunch, he sat down for an interview. He told the Global Times that resembling a star did bring him well-paying jobs in his early days, but now that he wants to fight with his own name, he feels his body of work has turned into an obstacle.

"Directors do not want to use a similar face," Du explained.

Du said moving forward is a difficult but simple task.

"You just need to do well in your jobs, because what the audience looks for is good acting. If you do well, people will pay less attention to who you might look like," Du said.