THE HIT LIST - June 1, 2015

Another big week has rolled by for some more amazing feats of independent action for domestic and international, with at least a few gems lending a spotlight to longstanding thespians respective to their own bases. These Hit Lists are always so loaded with content so I hope you are all able to keep up, too.

That said, let's get the show going here with some notable fight, stunt and tricking reels in the following embedded playlist, and a few of these are quite the favorites among some fans out there. Jessie Graff's most recent reel came out in April and so I've finally caught up with it myself, in addition to many more performers, including Katie Kramer, Esther Ballesteros, Michael Lehr, Goran Stjepanovic, Matt Mullins, Peter Jang, Aaron Toney, Jordan Okubo, the EMC Monkeys and the amazingly talented Celine Tran in a beautiful sword performance video from Godefroy Ryckewaert (if you'd like to see her kill zombies instead, you can do that too).

It's trailer time, and there are only a couple of these projects now active in some form or another, firstly with the current episode one webseries release of J.F.K. from actor and filmmaker Kyle Wong over at Black Ice 140. There's no relation here to the 35th President Of The U.S. and much more of a cross between The Hangover and The Twilight Zone with a story centered on three friends forced to piece together the events that occured the night they all got a little too drunk; The project is a reworking of its previous iteration, shot entirely new for a more cohesive story. There's comedy, a little drama, and only one fight scene in its current six-part setup, which is fine for what Wong envisions, and there are three character trailers on the channel to serve as a nice intro - Kyle's character trailer is at the very top.

The second trailer comes directly from blogger and filmmaker Michael S. Moore whose brand new webseries, Cornered, is airing its first episode on Tuesday, with Donald Brooks starring as a cop forced to fight his way through a gauntlet of deadly fighters to retrieve a briefcase and save the life of a woman from captivity. This doesn't look bad at all for Moore's debut at all and I look forward to what the remainder of this series has to offer, and you can learn more about it at his official Facebook page.

Two other short film trailers are also making the rounds - the first one comes by way of Bryan Sloyer, a filmmaker, stuntman and a consumate work-in-progress with a more mindful approach in his artistic delivery for sometime now, and his upcoming fight short, Music Man, is an example of that. The trailer beneath it is compilation trailer for two shortfilms by French actor and stuntman Daren Nop for Shadow Of 13, both which focus on a young homeless man whose remarkable fighting skills and acts of heroism draw the ire of the local thugs; Both shorts are now offline, but bode highly in their respective parts with stellar performances and design by Nop and his team, Cascade, in association with Taken and Transporter Refueled fight coordinator Alain Figlarz and his team. Moreover, the project just hit Cannes two weeks ago, so I wouldn't be too surprised if a feature film is in the works because of it. Just delighted, really.

The week also brings some cool new pictures from upcoming indie short projects. The first wave comes from Canadian fall guy Alex Chung well underway with Hit Me Apocalypse, now out with two new stills illustrating this, the third in a series of shorts paying hilarious tribute to Fight Club and host to an array of action sequences full of comedic genius...which reminds me... those ARE sticks. And ow. - The second album includes stills from a forthcoming project by George Johnston and his talented crew at Glasgow-based Hybrid Fight Academy. It's been a few years since I heard from this lot, so I look forward to whatevet their stills entail as well.

Time to knuckle up and get the fights out and about! The first four comes with the good graces of actor and martial artist Mathis Landwher taking the lead in a conceptual action sequence for a project titled Trespasser; It looks pretty ambitious and I would love to see more of it if there are plans in the works.

The second, third and fourth short videos below bring us the latest test fight gig from performers Taylor Tai and Ieisha Auyeung, Winner Takes All - the latest from David Conk over at Wolf Stunts, and some Pad Training with a twist courtesy of Movie Do's own Eskindir Tesfay and featuring pad-kicking trainee Robert Masser!

Now merging into some longer material, this final leg of the Hit List is one to truly savour. Actor and choreographer Namphon Arta Thainuruk's latest performance in Fired lends a good start here, with a story focused on an assassin whose concious arises during a job. I'll be honest, whatever happens at the end kinda left me feeling mindfucked a bit.

Bittersweet Beatdown is another new short that grants a bit of dramatic appeal with some action to boot, with performances by Andres Del Toro and director Joren Reyes. Del Toro plays Alessandro, a desperate street fighter in need of a little help that comes in a most awkward, and painfully brutal way. The action is a little sketchy with regard to editing and execution, but it's a watchable package and I recommend checking it out anyway.

Oh...and speaking of Lehr and provided you caught his reel in the embed at the very top, his team at Fight Factory have assembled anothet gem of their own, and it's apparently more suitable in brackets. [kill] is the title here, so make of it what you will. It's stylishly violent, gory and brutal, and for those reasons alone, it's awesome.

Next up is a continuation of a miniseries of action-packed fight experiments from filmmaker Eric Nguyen over at Lunar Stunts Action Cinema. The Fighting Journey has been going for a few years now and each with great results, and his next anf eighth installment, Uncharted, is another to feast the eyes on.

Now, now, in case you're getting weary of learning when you'll hear from Vlad Rimburg again, fear not. I teased his latest project with Tony Chu a few Hit Lists ago and it has since arrived in full, and it packs an array of walloping kicks to the face! Sacrifice is the title here featuring Brendon Huor leading with key performances by Mickey Faccinello, Amy Johnston, V10 Women Stunt Professionals's own Nadia Padilla, and a ghoulish appearance by fellow action actress Gemma Nguyen!

Shenmue - 'Suka High finally arrived from Leroy Nguyen and his team over at Rising Tiger Films, based on the Sega Dreamcast video game of the same name. I admit, I have no idea what the game itself really is since I never owned a Dreamcast, but whatever Nguyen and co-star Daniel Sim have set out to accomplish here, it appears they've done exactly that. You can also catch a making-of video on their channel as well.

While many of independent filmmaker Jeff Centauri's previous shorts feature gorgeous Filipina locals at the center of the action, this time he's bringing the fellas back to the stage once more. That said, Centauri's Kung Ako si ASIONG (If I Were ASIONG) lends the spotlight to the main character in a 2011 feature-length gangster biopic with an entertaining spin, showcasing Jerico Estregan and Eric Ejercito in a bro-infused duality between Asiongs. Oh, and there's a special appearance at the end by Eric's father who played the title role four years ago on the big screen, which I thought was pretty damn cool. Take a look!

Continuing all Star Wars fandom is the latest fight video from a group that I'm new to. Trilogy Wars brings John Perez and Alfonso Rodriguez in a tale of two friends talking girls, life, and movies, and as the story would have it, the last one results in an epic lightsaber battle around the house, with a twist at the end you might find amusing but...so much anti-Jar Jar hate though! Wow.

And finally, it's a good year to be actor and director David Sandberg, star of the new online shortfilm, Kung Fury, with 3 millions views in the first 24 hours and rising since Thursday, and now one of the most buzzed-about and warmly-received shorts now hitting festivals with a feature film on par for 2018. If you're new to this finely-crafted piece of retro awesomeness, by all means, let's fix that right now. All it needs are your eyeballs, and just thirty minutes to completely melt your brain through them. It'll feel good, I promise!

Subscribe to the channels and pages above, and if you have a few more minutes, last week's Hit List is still up and running in case you missed. But more importantly, if you have a QUALITY reel/shortfilm/trailer or other action-related material you think deserves an audience, hit us up at filmcombatsyndicate@gmail.com.

THE HIT LIST - December 29, 2014

It's been another amazing year of presenting independent action to help their respective creators attain bigger audiences. There were a few that were supposed to come out by now, but unfortunately some of those (as usual) tend to take longer, whether or not they have to do with post-production or other plans for allocation. Maybe 2015 will bring better, much deserved prospects. Action films need to get better, and the folks included in this week's Hit List are just a handful of people worthy to help in this cause.

What better way to celebrate post-holiday cheer than to watch two Santas duke it out to see which one is more badass?! It's Good Santa vs. Evil Santa performed by Italian stuntfighting team D-Unit's own Mirco Cazzol and Loris Ripamonti in Mission: Impossible - Christmas Protocol!

Here is another new gem from Canadian stunt team, Eclipse Stunts with a newly released trailer for Jingle Bell Rocked. The project never got finished, as always with a lot of independent shorts that fall ill to lack of time and busy scheduling of its performers, but it still presents a nice little glimpse of what could have been. Maybe one day we will get to see a full fight scene from it, although I'm not sure. At any rate, the trailer is up for viewing.

Seven years after mixing it up on YouTube, stuntmen and brothers Alfred Hsing and Alvin Hsing are following up on their holiday tradition with another installment of Holiday Hsing Fight. It's got a nice little set up and both of these guys have have sharpened greatly over the years within their repsective careers. It shows and hopefully you've already taken notice. If not, then it's not too late to do so now.

Independent filmmaker and martial arts enthusiast, Eric Nguyen re-launched his official website for his film platform over at Lunar Stunts Action Cinema. As such, he's accompanied his latest update with fresh new content in the form of some cool behin-the-scenes footage showcasing Nguyen with performers Irvin Nguyen and Mickey Arce on the set of his own recent short, El Guerrero. It's not often shorts like these get their own making-of featurettes, so its great to have these little windows that allow us to look at these up-and-coming professionals from a genuine perspective; In my own humble opinion, one thing I've noticed is that Irvin smiles a lot. He can literally kick your ass with a smile on his face and not even know it... I guess some of us have yet to reach that level of "cool".

Take a look below and feel free to visit the website and check out Nguyen's entry along with a couple of set pictures for good measure.

Up next is another little bit of back and forth from Wolf Stunts' own David Conk behind the lens, collaborating with screenfighters Anthony Anderson, Blake Roach and Neil Bogucki. It's shorter than a minute but still cool to check out as a pre-requisite for what will hopefully come next this year. Check it out, in addition to two more reels featuring Conk, and fellow collaborator, action actor Ben Aycrigg.

French stuntman and filmmaker Godefroy Ryckewaert first came on my radar about a year ago. He's got a great eye for the lens and he's back to highlight that fact once again with the new comedic action short, Tatapis Tami, which I can only summarize as gang warfare at its most prepubescent! I thought this was funny, charming and well executed, and I'm hyped to see what Ryckewaert comes up with next after this.

Filmmaker Fernando Jay Huerto's year has proven quite fruitful, with a feature film in development with an official cast announcement pending, and a flurry of online action collaborations with a number of young and inspired performers at home and abroad. You can check out a glimpse of those in his newest 2014 martial arts action reel, featuring clips of previous and upcoming shorts to come!

There isn't much I can say about this particular video. It intially released online back in July as a concept for a new series titled Interface, which aims to introduce a story that crosses between the visionary strengths and urban, gritty tone of films and TV shows like The Raid, Inception, Blade Runner and The Wire. Blood And Bone helmer Ben Ramsey and actor, martial artist and writer Arnold Chon are behind this ambitious project, and not more has been built on it except what has been left with a Facebook page to further champion the concept with news articles devoted to innovative science and technology relative to the subject matter. If this all suits you, feel free to take a look and subscribe to the page, and hopefully it will mean this concept will be done some cinematic justice. For now though, the video is below. Oh, and for good measure, there's some more Interface footage in stunt performer Christopher Balualua's summer reel from earlier this year just beneath!

For this segment, we have some previz footage featuring UK stuntmen Jean-Paul Ly and Law Jhon for the new martial arts action short, Deep Pan Fury from filmmaker Charlie Dennis. Both are attached to the project with Ly (Lucy, Street Fighter: Assassin's Fist) directing the action in a spiritual thriller about a Japanese fighter in search of redemption with no choice but to reclench his fists once more when local Yakuza underlings threaten his grandfather's pizzeria.

I'm a pizza lover so I'm proudly partial. I can't wait to see the ass-kicking that awaits, and I hope it gets funded as it deserves to be. Check out the video and head over to Kickstarter to watch even more solid concept footage within the campaign video!

French action director Cedric Tellier delivered an impressive action short earlier this year in the form of Elit Unit prior to puttng up a small teaser for another upcoming fast-paced short titled La Casse back in October. This month, he's offered another small teaser, now with an additional kick in the eardrums courtesy of Metallica, and you can now check that out as well.

It's been quite a while since I last wrote about Danny Vega's upcoming directorial debut, A Dance With The Devil. Mainly, the production has hit a few snags between now and last year, so the project is now undergoing some reconstruction and it may be a while before we learn what that means. Nevertheless, Vega has taken to the interwebs to share one of the project's pivotal fight sequences. Hopefully we see more of this, because it really looks worthy of something larger in scale. Check it out!

Dardrex Productions's latest piece of work showcases what happens when a teacher becomes weary of his student's suspicious absenses. Missing Student is the name of the project with Darren Holmquist and Frank Hernandez working the lens with performances by Martin Chan and Eddie Ramos.

Swedish stuntfighter, up-and-comer Betim Alimi's latest showreel is online, and it's worth a look. Alimi has been aspiring for this particular field for close to ten years now, having been a martial arts purveyor since he was five. Endulging on a staple diet of the Hong Kong classics of yesteryear was what led him to start cutting his teeth in 2005. 2009 saw the worst of it when he broke his leg, and his screenfighting recovery has largely been a slow and steady one as more projects have followed, and I've had the good fortune of sharing a few of them on this site this year.

The stunts, the takes and the injury are among all you will see summarized in the following reel, highlighting Alimi's driven spirit to keep going.

Epic Bully Fight is a bit of a throwback. It's a little over a year old and features performances by YouTube personalities Dominick Sandoval and Jerel Mascarinas, and to be honest, I don't remember if I shared this on my blog or not, and I don't really care, because it's worth sharing as its one of the most fluid and slick videos I've seen in my time as a blogger. It's got action, goofball comedy and some spectacle to boot, and even though these two aren't known for making these kinds of videos, I certainly wouldn't complain if they made more.

If you watch enough online tutorials on martial arts, you probably know who Wing Chun expert Master Wong is. He talks a lot of shit, but backs it up pretty awesomely, and it's all very informative and entertaining as well. Moreover, I've been curious as to whether or not he would accomodate doing an action film someday, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that opinion. Well, to those it may concern, our curiosity here gets somewhat rewarded in his latest video pitting Wing Chun against boxing.

It's the stuff of all sorts of martial arts fanboy chatter when compairing styles, so take a look and feel free to decide who wins in the end. This should be interesting!

With this year's induction of vampire slasher comic book pitch, Heartbreaker, and sword-wielding samurai short, Bladed Minds, former adult entertainer-turned-screenfighting temptress, actress Celine Tran has already set herself up for potentially greater prospects in the action genre, provided that her efforts remain continued. The responses from online netizens have been nothing short of positive, and action fans can only hope we see much more sooner. And if you're one of those fans as of late, then you'll be delighted to take a look at Tran's newest action short, Burst, with director Vincent Gatinaud back behind the lens and Mathieu Lardot directing the truly cutthroat action!

And lastly, freerunner Ryan Doyle has something he wants you to know. And you know what? I believe him!

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