SEA Games 2025: Tay Yu Xuan aims to be picture-perfect in wushu and cinematography

SINGAPORE – As an inquisitive child, Tay Yu Xuan was especially captivated by movement and lighting.

When he was seven, he saw his primary school seniors perform a wushu routine and pestered his mother to enrol him for Chinese martial arts self-defence classes. He started with nanquan (southern fist), followed by changquan (long fist) before settling on taijiquan.

His curiosity continued into his teens when he used his older sister’s camera and found photography fun. He then ventured into videography by “documenting my life experiences” and cinematography, which he describes as “learning how to recreate lighting from paintings and films”.

The 24-year-old Nanyang Technological University communications student told The Sunday Times: “There’s a similar artistic freedom between wushu and cinematography, where we use various methods to express ourselves, be it through our movements or our images. I like that I can use my creativity to express myself through my routine or my cinematography.”

It comes as no surprise that Tay is a fan of Jet Li’s fanziquan – a Northern Chinese discipline known for its fast, explosive hand techniques and acrobatic kicks – and movies, and his dream is to combine both passions to make an action film.

He said: “I did consider becoming a stuntman, but I would not want to become a lead actor as I’m more comfortable behind the camera, crafting the images. On the other hand, wushu performances are fun because I’ve been doing it for a long time.”

In a way, he is now juggling both his interests, as he is in the midst of completing his final-year project – Baba’s Voice, a short film about a young girl’s journey to fix a broken radio to hear her father again – and preparing for the SEA Games, where he will compete in the men’s taijijian/taijiquan and duilian (sparring trio).

Tay said: “As the director of photography, I’m in charge of pre-production planning, how the scene is lit, as well as camera movements and composition.

“I am responsible for the visual look and feel of the film through my cinematography, including the camera and lighting departments, and my main goal is to translate the director’s vision into a visual format. This makes me happy because I love to create visually compelling images through my composition, camera movement and lighting.

“Similarly in wushu, I have to translate our coaches’ guidance and choreography into a winning routine on stage, and being able to achieve this feels just as satisfying.”

While both of his endeavours are challenging, he is looking to break his six-year gold medal drought in wushu after some agonising near-misses.

In his SEA Games debut at Cambodia 2023, he was beaten to the men’s taijijian/taijiquan gold by Brunei’s Hosea Wong by 0.07 points.

Later that year at the World Wushu Championships in the United States, he lost the men’s taijijian title to Chinese Taipei’s Chen Yu-wei only on the final criterion.

But Tay continued to work on his craft, earning men’s taijiquan bronzes at the 2024 World Taijiquan Championships in Singapore and the 2025 World Wushu Championships in Brazil.

Just like how his sister inspired him to pick up a camera, other family members have also played a pivotal role in his wushu career – his mother is involved in designing his costumes, and both parents will travel to Bangkok to support him.

Tay, who takes a small camera to document his journeys at competitions, said: “It’s been six years since I stepped on top of the podium during a junior competition, so yes, winning a gold medal would mean the world to me. I still need to improve on the overall performance value of my routine, to create a routine that will wow the audience.

“And of course I want to win a medal for Singapore, but I also just want to go out on the carpet and enjoy performing my routine in front of my family and friends. Hopefully, I will be able to deliver a picture-perfect one for everyone.”