THE HIT LIST - June 22, 2015

This week's Hit List has some substance to it, if I may say so myself. One shortfilm finally came out in particular and it's one I've covered quite a bit lately and I'm proud to have done as much as I have on it, and you'll see more coverage on Tuesday.

Until then, it's Monday night, and it's time to show off some stunt reels to cleanse the palette with videos by Bryan Sloyer, Michaela Chernoch, Cliff Ryder, Tonya Kay, Alexander Ullrich, Tim Storms, Lou Simon, Cassie Lee Minick, Sara Holden, Brett Easton and Narayana Cabral.

Skipping brifely over to teaser territory, actor and stuntman Michael Lehr growing craft over at Fight Factory Stunt Team has amassed some impressive work in recent months; VerseS is one of those projects - a grisly implementation of violent prose with Lehr fighting his way out of captivity. It's part of a whole series and the second episode isn't too far off, and its teaser is up for your viewing pleasure.

Time to practice fighting again, and for the first two quick videos of this segment, we get to see the latest from Emmanuel Manzanares and Jim Ng with respective performances by Amy Sturdivant and Bryan Sloyer, and a slick knife fight between James Ng and Evan Daniels. The third video below features actor Nick Denbeigh in a brief short expansion of the dystopian world created by filmmaker Jela Oba Okpara for the hit 2014 short, The Last Girl - hence the title, Give Us The Girl, followed by a new motivational gem from the folks over at Cinematic Fight Studio titled Never Give Up with actor Ricky Barksdale front and center.

The video beneath comes by way of fellow fan, New York City comedian Lawson Leung whose gotten some attention by the stunt community for assembling great montage footage in the name of supporting indepenent martial arts action. That's exactly what his new video does for the work brought about in 2015.

Speaking of independent action, it's about that time again, and the first to see is the latest websode of director Tony Laudati's long-running series, Kung Fu Femmes. It's a story of one warrioress's mission to save exploited stage fighting showgirls from a nefarious underworld crimeboss, and it's a mission that no less tests our heroine in more ways than one. If you're new to this series, feel free to click here and brush up, otherwise, check out the video below!

Lunar Stunts Action Cinema is back and at it again with director and fight choreographer Eric Nguyen whose short films are quite an example of an evolution in style. Each of his projects up the antee just a little more than his predecessors and his latest, Pandora's Box 3 exemplifies this rightly so.

The film itself follows a slate of stories of hitmen conflicted with the traditions their firm is beholden to by their lottery, wherein the one who wins the black dot gets marked for death. Nguyen's work is highly worth speaking of, and I'm ever more hopeful that the right person will grant this man whatever he needs to get a lush film career going.

And finally, peer over to University Of York film graduate Andrew Kueh whose latest sci-fi thriller, Prime Contact, is slowly but surely (and hopefully) becoming a big deal. Spy co-star Julian Miller takes on the role of Sam LeBrant, a transconciousness in a race against time to reunite with his wife and his vegetative body against the will of the courrpt tech corporation that expended him.

It's taken a couple of years for this project to finally go public since its crowdfunding and subsequent production and festival run, and this newly-released pre-viz clip by Leeds-based SG Action lends a tasty morsel worth the eyes. Beyond that, I got to interview Miller last week and it's going up on Tuesday, so check him out in action below with the short in full.

Last week's Hit List wasn't as light as I thought it was, but is still worth your time if you have any left to kill. For now, subscribe to the channels above and yes, if you make QUALITY content yourself, send us something at filmcombatsyndicate@gmail.com!