Scene Stealer: ‘The Foot Fist Way’s’ taekwondo chop

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Director and former taekwondo student Jody Hill made ‘The Foot Fist Way’ on a shoestring budget, so he didn’t have money to hire professional stuntmen. Turns out taekwondo instructor Sean Baxter, whose school in Concord, N.C., served as the film’s primary location, stepped in at the last minute, saving the production not only cash but potential grief as well. During the climactic face-off between Fred Simmons (Danny McBride) and Chuck ‘The Truck’ (Ben Best), the two were required to break multiple wood boards in rapid sequence. With no stuntmen, the plan called for McBride and Best to hide lead pipes in their hands and break the boards using the little taekwondo training they had. ‘The physics behind that don’t work real well,’ Baxter said. Rather than wind up with two actors with broken hands, the boards were pre-cut and glued together. For close-ups, Baxter stood in for McBride and Hill for Best, and they broke the boards for real. Careful observation shows the actors breaking the boards with wrapped hands, while the real martial artists go bare-knuckled.

-- Patrick Kevin Day