Park Hyeon-jin 박현진 朴賢鎮

[J.J. Hayden]

Park Hyeon-jin 박현진 朴賢鎮

 

Born in South Korea on 3rd November 1975, Park Hyeon-jin spent his youth in Buan County (Buan-gun), North Jeolla Province, South Korea and learned Taekwondo at an early age from his father, who ran a martial arts studio. Park was a fan of martial arts cinema and dreamed of one day joining a stunt team, to the further his goal he studied various martial arts styles, gymnastics and also Chinese language. Immediately after graduating from high school, he left for Seoul at age 19 under the cover of darkness to voluntarily serve in the Marine Corps, leaving a note to his parents saying he'll come visit them when on leave.

 

After completing his service he continued to pursue his dream of a career in action and found action director Kim Baek-soo who found him work on TV shows at the newly formed Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS) network, getting his first onscreen role was as a biker, when he was 21 years old. While at SBS he was able to observe one of his heroes making TV shows, Korean action legend Hwang Jeong-ri, though they didn't have the chance to work together. Park did anything that would help him in his mission of becoming a stunt man in Hong Kong, including getting a: bodyguard license; scuba diving license; car racer license etc. but it was his friend and senior Jang Dong-oh (aka Raven Chang) who got him the gig. Raven had a similar dream and career history to Park and had formed the Magpie Stunt Team whose members also included two other Koreans that would travel to Hong Kong to become stuntmen; Bruce Khan who joined the Sammo Hung Stunt Team and Lee In-seop who would become an "official member of the Jackie Chan Stunt Team" alongside Park. Raven managed to secure an audition for him with Jackie Chan himself, so in 200 Park travelled to Hong Kong.

 

During the audition, Jackie spoke to Park in Korean to ease the tension and watched Park's demonstration which imitated Jackie's moves and some creative movements of his own. Jackie's expression seemed to be vague with little sign of excitement or disappointment, but then after a few weeks Park was called to work on Gen-Y Cops (2000) and began fulfilling his dream of becoming an "official member of the Jackie Chan Stunt Team". Park would go on to become one of the team's most important members and was often employed as a stunt double for leading actors, including Jackie himself. Between filming with the JC Stunt Team he would often return to Korea and work on films there including with Magpie Stunt Team and even with another Korean action legends: Won Jin, who had also travelled to Hong Kong to make martial arts movies during the early 90s; and Jeong Doo-hong who (like Won Jin) has become one of South Korea's top action directors.

 

After working on The Spy Next Door (2010) Park decided to not return to the JC Stunt Team and instead focus on his career in his home country, where he has joined his seniors as one of the top action directors working on many movies and TV series there. Mostly working behind the scenes, he's not had many opportunities to be seen onscreen, but he can be seen playing Eagle in the Jackie Chan movie The Myth (2005).

For a full list of "official members of the Jackie Chan Stunt Team" see here: 

 

Edited May 8, 2023 by J.J. Hayden

[J.J. Hayden]

Clearing up some inaccurate credits for Park Hyeon-jin on IMDB (and some other sites):

#1 He was not a stunt performer on the 2016 TV series Dark Matter, they've mixed this one credit with fellow Korean stuntman J.J. Park, credited on this series (and this specific episode) as Jung Jin Park.

#2 He did not participate in any Doraemon films, it's just a namesake voice actor.

#3 He did not participate in Detective K: Secret Of The Lost Island [2015].

#4 He did not play Haram in Dragon Wars: D-War [2007], that was a Korean TV actor called Hyeon Jin, credited here as Jin Hyun, not sure how they F'd up this one.