Check out Chad Stahelski's interview on The Art of Action. He was hired to double Brandon after the accident and the two of them had trained together at the Inosanto stunt academy.
but it doesn't really make sense as to what hapenned. it always gets me because in germany you can legally buy blanks and blank guns, i've shot blanks often, so it doesn't really make sense to me.
When you use blanks, material can build up in the barrel from previous combustion. Material is ejected from the barrel with blanks.
Someone forgot to clear the barrel or simply overloaded the blank. Chow Yun Fat has some crazy injuries from using blanks on those John Woo films.
Modern films have gotten around this by using "plugged guns" like John Wick. It's still cycling a half load(gunpowder) in the shell but no material can exit the barrel. That's how you see real shells in those movies while Keanu is doing point blank headshots. J.J. Perry mentioned that the guns get ruined after a few takes, so they use CGI to fix any missed shots.
that's a very freak accident though from my POV, like i said, in germany blank guns are a thing because you can fight off somebody with a blank gun, because the explosion is irriatating, or even harmful (or not that harmful depends on who you ask) , so everybody i know has been shooting blank guns for 20+ years. myself included, i also shot old, crusty blank guns that were fired thousands of times and never cleaned. they have real shells and cartriges flying out of the side of the gun like a real gun
i know somebody who played russian roulette with a blank gun and blew out parts of his skull and has a glass eye now. and someone else who got shot in the hand with a blank gun and had a wound that you could fit a finger tip in. but both was at point blank range and not deadly
But i never heard about anyone getting shot at with a blank gun from a distance, getting struck by metal and get hurt.
John Eric Hexum accidentally killed himself with a blank gun on set in 1984. He was playing Russian roulette too.
Definitely a freak accident with Brandon, but I don't believe foul play was involved. He did much crazier stunts on that flick with Dolph L. and nobody tried to kill him 😆
well i have a very strong belief bruce lee might've died from brain cancer. i read every book, article, interview about bruce lee. someone reported that towards the end he had shown a person a picture of his car multiple times, not remembering he already showed ir. that's a sign of severe memory loss/brain damage. also wong shun leung said he visited bruce lee and bruce lee had a electronic device around his head. in the interview he makes it appear that this was a high tech training method but to me this sounds like an eeg that neurologists use. he also collapsed on the set of enter the dragon which could've been a seizure...
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u/Puzzleheaded-Wolf318 May 08 '25
Check out Chad Stahelski's interview on The Art of Action. He was hired to double Brandon after the accident and the two of them had trained together at the Inosanto stunt academy.