Some people think stuntmen are daredevils who relish hurling themselves off high places. But Chau Cheung Tak will be the first to tell you it is not true true. At least, not fot him.
"When I have to jump off a building, my legs tremble," the 37-year-old native of Fuzhou, China, says in Mandarin.
The 1.65m-tall dynamo, who sports mean biceps and a severe-looking haircut, says the secret to getting the job done is to know how to calm his nerves.
"Once 'action' is shouted, I calm down and focus. I just think to myself. 'I don't want to get injured'."
Still injuries are unavoidable. His worst took place when he hurt his ankles after falling on tatami mats during a rehearsal at the 1995 MediaCorp Star Search. It left him in a wheelchair for a month.
But thoughts of quitting never crossed his mind. "There will definitely be injuries. I suffered them even when I was practising martial arts when young."
Both to a sailor father and clerk mother, Chau is a disciple of the late China nanquan champion Qiu Jianguo and was trained in martial arts of the fust from the age of seven.
Showbiz was the only viable career for someone with a martial arts background, he says.
"The earnings were really very good," says the soft-spoken man with the toothy grin.
In 1987, he left China for Hong Kong to work as a stuntman. The movie industry then was enjoying good times and stuntmen could take home HK$50,000 a month, six times what blue-collar workers earned.
He shows you his portfolio with photographs he took on the set of Dragon Inn in 1991, the first movie he worked on.
Maggie Cheung, Carol Cheng and Lin Ching-Hsia are just some of the luminaries he has doubled for.
Chau, who is better known as Ah Tak or Tak Chai, came to Singapore in 1993 to work for the then Singapore Broadcasting Corporation as he heard that life was more relaxed here compared to Hong Kong.
Now as a Singapore citizen and married to a Singaporean housewife with a 10-year-old daughter, he admits that it is hard earning a living doing stunts.
Safety is always a concern, and he prays before embarking on each stunt. But he does not believe in insurance" "The best insurance is to rely on oneself."
He supplements his income by performing martial arts at shopping centre shows and company functions. He is also on the lookout for overseas opportunities. "I'm on standby in Singapore. One phone call and I go."