If stardom, traditionally, was a superhero who fought the bad guys and saved the world, then the fief of anonymity would fall to their unseen and mostly underpaid stunt double. Even this fief, however, has come under threat, with digital doubles CGI-ed over live flesh and blood in the apparently unstoppable triumph of capital over labor. Stunt work thus crippled, possibly immobilized indefinitely, the vulgar image of studio maleficence increasingly registers as blunt force trauma to the creative industry — both for its wronged, woebegone creatives and for the industrious capitalists that have supported and exploited them in equal measure. When Dr. Doom can pocket over a hundred million in glorified fan service recycling, one starts to wonder if it’s time the media’s big leagues themselves are outed as Public Enemy Number One.
So much for America Inc.; a separate if related crisis of the arts has been brewing here in Singapore, concerning the livelihoods of literal persons and dreams. As Peps (Peps Goh), the founder of the real-life Sandbox Training Ground, pantomimes coaching lessons at his stunt school for no one in particular, word comes in that the rent has gone up, that Sandbox would have to close its doors, and that months spent eking out a spartan non-existence at the fringes of societal consciousness are all to come spiraling down. Peps, understandably, is discouraged, more so than his brother John (Jon Cancio), the school’s marketing manager. John’s finance counterpart and ex-wife, Min (Oon Shu An), mostly wishes to call it quits and cast off the sunk costs to start anew. With no respite from reality, not even with Pep’s loyal assistant Ashley (Tiffany Yong) fanning his delusions, the pipe dream looks dangerously close to bursting, and badly.
James Thoo’s Sandbox therefore seems — and is — well-poised to flaunt a conventional rags-to-riches tale of fervid optimism, employing the boundless possibilities of its comedic register to overhaul the mundane for the magnificent. To an extent it does: stunt work by its nature contains an escapist bent, which Sandbox amply plumbs for both narrative progression and character development. But the film also serves up a fascinating recipe of immediacy with its mash-up of mockumentary, action reel, and crowdfunding campaign, cognizant of its status both as entertainment vehicle and as exultant cri de cœur. As an ensemble cast comprising several of Singapore’s recognized artistes and actors — Benjamin Kheng, Nathan Hartono, Estelle Fly, Fauzi Azzhar, Xuan Ong, and Aaron Mossadeg — play among themselves the various goofball personalities that have come to train under Pep’s tutelage, Thoo’s mockumentary takes on an almost jarring currency, rushing as it were to rescue the school from the real-time threat of oblivion.
Initially somewhat meandering and approaching the wavelength of a YouTube skit, Sandbox quickly gains momentum as it teases and troubleshoots the grand illusions of superhero stardom. In the thick of the school’s financial troubles, an ad is publicized, promising international fame and exposure through the prospect of Marvel scouting locally for their next big thing. This publicity brings a much-needed virality for Peps and co., who in turn decide, once and for all, to go big or home with their venture. Amid fight choreographies, martial arts routines, and a generous amount of wire-assisted stunt practice, their students make light of the film’s broad superhero conceit while simultaneously aspiring to it: bored Gen Z wannabes they are, the likes of Singapore’s Peacemaker and whatever the Flash’s impassive cousin is are nevertheless heartwarming to behold in all their winsome sincerity.
This sincerity inevitably comes full circle to infuse Sandbox with a passionate sensibility specific to a generation of beleaguered Singaporean artists yet appreciable within the grander designs of artistic dearth. Not merely a mockument of the field’s steadily numbing corporatism — Thoo’s scenario, aside from some of its more prominent cast, is real and ongoing — but also an invigorating fiction about trial, error, and recovery, the film foregrounds its figurative titular sand pit (which curious parents, in one of its many gags, repeatedly mistake the training ground for) as a sanctum from and for weathering the harsher truths about creative business. Its training regimen includes taking hits and taking down the adversary, although the site’s literal and allegorical raison d’être is arguably its motto: to “fall safely always.” A superhero joint fashioned out of character reels and foolhardy grit, Sandbox has been alternately titled The Sandbox by other accounts, including the director’s. Perhaps it’s a clerical oversight; perhaps it’s a stunt performer’s hope on hold, waiting to gain its definite footing.
Published as part of Singapore International Film Festival 2025 — Dispatch 2.
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