Customs Frontline’s Nicholas Tse on adding action director to his CV and his ‘real’ stunts

Nicholas Tse talks about channelling Jackie Chan to keep the stunts authentic in Customs Frontline, his first outing as an action director

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Nicholas Tse in a still from Customs Frontline. The Hong Kong actor, who got his first action director credit for his work on the Herman Yau movie, tells the Post how he engineered stunts in a “traditional” way to make “a true action film”.

Published: 6:15pm, 2 Jul 2024Updated: 6:30pm, 2 Jul 2024

“That’s me,” Nicholas Tse Ting-fung says, pointing to the screen of his smartphone. In a video, the actor is seen donning a vest and harness before performing a stunt in Customs Frontline.

In the scene, a crane lifted Tse seven storeys off the ground. He jumped onto a cargo container held aloft by cables, sliding off backwards as it tilted towards the ground. The film’s director, Herman Yau Lai-to, winced as he watched from the actor’s side, muttering, “Safety first.”

“It was raining that day,” Tse recalls. “I had to persuade Herman to let me do the stunt because there’s a certain amount of danger involved. A stunt choreographer was holding the camera and following me as I rolled off the container and dropped down to a car windshield.”

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

A large-scale adventure crammed with stunts and action sequences, the film opens with a deep-sea battle off the coast of Africa before introducing customs officers Tse and his boss, played by co-star Jacky Cheung Hok-yau, back in Hong Kong, where they are trying to break up an arms-smuggling ring.

In addition to chases, shoot-outs and fight scenes, Customs Frontline brings up some unexpected subplots, such as a lead character’s bipolar disorder.