An action recognition system and method are provided. The system includes an image capture device configured to capture a video sequence formed from image frames and depicting a set of objects. The system includes a processor configured to detect the objects to form object detections. The processor is configured to track the object detections over the frames to form tracked detections. The processor is configured to generate for a current frame, responsive to conditions, sparse object proposals for a current location of an object based on: (i) the tracked detections of the object from an immediately previous frame; and (ii) detection proposals for the object derived from the current frame. The processor is configured to control a hardware device to perform a response action in response to an identification of an action type of an action performed by the object, the identification being based on the sparse object proposals.