THE HIT LIST - August 17, 2015

Well, Monday night has arrived and I pretty much consider myself well-rested seeing as how I ended up back in blogger-mode on Sunday night. Some days you burn out, and on others you just start clicking...it's funny, really.

Anyway, with our return to the start of a new week, the Hit List is back just as well, lending nods to a meaty handful of stunt professionals every week in attribution to their hard work shown in reels and shortfilms alike. Alas, the new stunt reel playlist for the week is now up and running with reels by Donovan Sheehan, Boris Martinez, Marco Pancrazi, an awesome action reel by Raze co-star Allene Quincy, Jacob Sebastian Malm's latest reel featuring his Turandot stunt team from the summer in an illuminous new fire showreel, and actor David Sakurai in a new Vimeo-exclusive action reel of his own assembled from several of his recent action projects, including Dark Samurai and Echoes Of A Ronin!

David Sakurai Way of the Sword from サクライ on Vimeo.

Now onto more web content with some more specials, and if you were watching the last reel carefully, you may have recognized Andy Le who can also be seen among his principle team members at Martial Club in a new video up and running by Just Kidding Films where they learn all the ins and outs of Tricking. And if you know Just Kidding Films, you know your face is going to hurt plenty by the end. Enjoy in all it's delightful laughs!

I seldom spot fan videos, although when I do, quite a handful of them present just the right amount of flair attributed to the respective works they acknowledge. It's a case in no way dissimilar in actress and stuntwoman PeiPei Alena Yuan's latest love letter to martial arts action star Donnie Yen by way of the opening B-Boy sequence in Yuen Woo Ping's 1995 Hong Kong action comedy, Mismatched Couples. Yuan also happens to be a dancer, and her credentials notwithstanding (i.e. Step Up 3D, Battle B-Boy), her talent speaks for itself. Watch and leasrn!

Now let's get into some more action-oriented material with a nifty handful of trailers - one including some updated and rather crazy cool poster art as of late.

Aside from making other videos, Rising Tiger Films's latest, Black Scar Blues, has clearly been a more concentrated effort at something larger in scale. The film is directed by Leroy Nguyen who stars along with Edmund Shum and Queen Sayat, and focuses on two drug traffickers whose bond of friendship is slowly eroded through a series of events when personal ambition, lust and greed get in the way.

Nguyen will be presenting the film later this year at the Urban Action Showcase and Expo in New York City for the last of its year-long festival run boasting a slew of laurels and accolades well-earned, including as recently as the past two weekends in California at An Anti-Hero Production Genre Film Festival and The L.A. Neo Noir Film And Script Festival. Hopefully by then, the short will be released on YouTube unless it acquires a decent on-demand or purchase platform beforehand. In the meantime, it's got a fresh new trailer now running online with an updated poster, and once more, it has a quote. By me! And you're welcome.

We also have a new behind-the-scenes featurette with Nguyen explaining the four year-long process in working up to the high creative plateau presented for the film's final fight. Having seen it for myself, I have to say it really does deliver the desired effect.

Other trailers just beneath include the second promo for Dance Nocturnal creative Jyo Carolino's new action short, I Am Spartan, Tokyo-based action actor Chuck Johnson's upcoming surreal action comedy short, Fists Of Absinthe, and 3 Strands Of Rope Productions's Assassin/Darkside, sequelizing actor Calvert David Miles's 2014 awarded short, Assassin: Origins.

New short action vids are also circulating the web this week, and kicking this next leg off on the Hit List is League Of Legends themed short, Udyr's School Of Kung Fu, initially released back in May from Art School Dropouts and Fighting Panda Productions. Actor and fight choreographer Joey Min leads this one and its one adding to his resume of years of awesome action shorts and films, which makes it all the more awesome and honoring that he's now a part time contributor to Film Combat Syndicate to provide his perspective of action on film from time to time.

Check it out below as well as other new action projects this week, including Narayana Cabral's Spy Vs. Spy with Angela Bend and Danielle Stahl, the long-awaited release, Grave Error featuring Darren Holmquist and the one and only Eric Jacobus, and...well, probably the sickest Mortal Kombat fan short you'll ever see online..ever. And if you know RackaRacka, you know this ain't gonna no PG-13 shit. So consider yourself forewarned!

Finally, a few new action shorts have also been unveiled this week in slightly longer duration. Azi Rahman's cerebral action thriller, Drake is now online starring Cengiz Dervis in the role of a man trapped in his own mind amid spiritual battle with inner-demonic forces. The action is largely fueled by the music for a more dramatic affect so don't expect any foley effects as the stuntwork is solely visual.

And last but not least, gladly continuing the vision of R-rated superhero fanfare with brutal and gory action sequences is the latest sequel offering from Workhorse Pictures, Storms Of Carnage: The Black Panther Unleashed Part 2. Actor and director D.A. Jackson reprises his role once more opposite K. Jackson in a story of espionage, betrayal and the moral paradox that arises when battling evil, ultimately pitting the Black Panther against opponents on both sides of the spectrum, humans and mutants alike.

Fans familiar with the source material may either love or hate this one depending on the viewer as these things normally tend to be slightly more controversial than intended (see Adi Shankar's Power/Rangers). For what it's worth though, this one has quite the admirable traits for something truly worth the enjoyment as it's full of special effects, explosive action and dramatic intensity to accomodate the epic final fight between our embattled couple.

Twenty minutes and counting, folks. Press play and enjoy!

There is at least another short that I haven't gotten around to yet as it's forty minutes long and dated only by about few years, but I will share that one next week. For now though, if you have time to kill then last week's Hit List may be worth your remaining minutes at the moment. Above all else however, do subscribe to the channels above, and if you or someone you know makes awesome, QUALITY action and stunt reels, films and shorts like these, send them to us at filmcombatsyndicate@gmail.com!

Revenge Action Short, HEART Releases Online With Director's Statement

Independent movies are no easy feat to achieve, especially ambitious ones with a striking vision that aims for potential greatness from exception to exection. Atom Phly Media's own Frank Hernandez, filmmaker and helmer of such projects as Dardrex Productions' Keep Going shortfilm and The Living webseries, is no stranger to the task of movie making and the stringent film climate we are currently in, having spent the last several years inspired to bring one other of his latest ideas to life on camera in the form of martial arts action drama, Heart, with co-star and producer Jennifer Faust.

Hernandez began crowdfunding for the project earlier last year, and as common as it is for projects of this nature, Heart fell short of its goals and like with a lot of independent filmmaking endeavors, to say this project had its share of ups and downs would be nothing short of an understatment. Well, for better or worse, the short film is finally complete and available online, and in ceremonious fashion as well with Hernandez presenting the film in a public very personal and heartfelt testimony chronicling the journey he, Faust, lead actress Inder Mundi and the remainder of the crew took in moving Heart forward.

While I’m excited to have a new project out, the long journey from the inception of this film to the release was one of the hardest personal journeys I’ve ever had to take. The lows that I had during the making of this film were some of the deepest lows I’ve ever had creatively, but if these last few years have taught me anything is that I can push through because there are brighter days ahead. 

-2012- 

In 2012, I was riding high off the release of “Keep Going”, a very personal film that I had made with my good friend Darren Holmquist, because the response for it was (and with 51k views on YouTube currently, still is) very positive as many people seemed to really connect with it. Not long after, I became involved with the “Glass Butterfly” project as a documentarian and met/quickly befriended dancer Jennifer Faust. I showed her “Keep Going” and she quickly said she wanted to make an action film with us, so the first seeds of “Heart” were planted. 

At the time, I was also co-producing a zombie series called “The Living” with the ever-talented Johnny Brilliantes so I told Jen that I would definitely like to make a film with her after “The Living” was done. 

-2013- 

A year passed and “The Living” wrapped giving me time to sit back and write “Heart”. With a couple of suggestions from Jen and some inspiration from our star Inder Mundi, I wrote a 30 page script. This script was re-written over twelve times and as time went on it became a very personal film about mental health and obsession. It was the story of an obsessed young girl who truly believes that she’s the hero of her story, but as the story progresses we realize that her biggest obstacle is not some person that she pegs as a villain, but her own inability to let go. 

I put a lot of myself into this script and after my amazing artist friend Jason Kim made the storyboards, I definitely believed it could be something special. We just needed the budget to make it… 

-2014- 

All the pieces were in place. Nothing was rushed, everything was picked with a fine tooth comb and we launched our Kickstarter. The combination of a lofty goal and lack of fan groundswell led to the kickstarter ultimately failing, so other plans needed to be made. We had enough money to shoot a less-grand version of the film so we started with that, but the damage had been done. We shot one scene and shortly after the rest of production fell apart. I told Jen it was probably best to stop trying to pick up the pieces of this and put our focus into something else, something even better than Heart. 

I kept strong but inside I was devastated. For the first time in a very long time, I set out to do something I was very passionate about and it didn’t happen. I couldn’t stand the idea that not only did I let myself down, I let Jen down, someone who I see as an older sister who put her trust in me and it didn’t happen. 

I was pretty much in a haze of self-loathing and doubt for the rest of the year. I’d make a few videos here and there, but none of them really showed me at the best of my abilities. Jen would later come to me with this idea of a dance film triptych, Dust, Blood, and Water, and wanted me to have a major part in making it happen. I, in my depression, declined stating that I did not want anything to do with the production of it, but I would like to be a dancer in it since I had taken up a bit of an interest in dance. 

It’s funny in hindsight to see how involved Jen’s become in film and how involved I’ve become in dance since 2012, but at the time I felt nothing. 

-2015- 

After spending the better part of a year feeling sorry for myself, I was in the middle of therapy that I began late the previous year, when one day I just had a revelation that if I wanted to feel better, I needed to pull myself out of this hole. I read a number of self-help books, I kicked a few bad habits and over time my anxiety and depression began to lift. I knew that once I was myself I needed to start attacking all those things that made me sad in the first place. 

Finishing ‘Heart’ was the first on that list. 

I took the scene we shot and re-edited it to what you can see today. I spent way too long doubting myself and giving minimal effort to the thing I’m so passionate about that I tattooed it to my chest. I’m currently working on finalizing Dust for Triptych: Dust, Blood, and Water by Jennifer Faust which Jen brought me in for and I’m thankful that she’s taking a chance on me again. I’m not going to let her down and more importantly, I’m not going to let MYSELF down again. 

“Heart” is not just a short film, it's a declaration that I’m not going to be my own worst enemy anymore. As I said in the Kickstarter pitch video, “If you find something you love in this world, and you truly love it, you do it.” “Heart” is finding the strength in yourself when you don't think you have any left. 

Thank you so much everyone that has supported me and made this short possible. The release of this film is not the end, it’s only the beginning and you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Watch this would have been much more convenient as a Hit List edit for next Monday, it felt necessary to run this shortfilm today, and considering what Fernandez went through during this process, I fully commend him for his efforts, and the inspiring tone he speaks on and promotes here.

Watch Heart in the player below.

THE HIT LIST - April 13, 2015

The past week has been full of stunts, but not without a dash of drama - particularly over the haphazard-yet-brazen attempt of one particular person's attempt at stealing glory she didn't deserve. It happens often and it ALWAYS deserves calling out. In lieu of this, however, it also presents an opportunity to show some appreciation to one other aspect of the stunt community worth commending: The Stunt Drivers.

Alas, kicking off this week's Hit List is a small handful of reels of talented stunt drivers, namely Furious Seven stuntwoman Debbie Evans in her 2011 motorcycle stunt reel, along with reels from Laura Lee Connery, Matt Covert, Marcos Garcia, Danny Bopp and Bastian Kern, showing us how it's done!

Now, let's get some more reels going featuring the recent feats of Marlee Barber, Jeremy Marinas, Morgan Benoit, Alex Duong, Gabriel Caste, Zoltan Hodi, Kendall Wells, Jake Eavey, Max Calder and actor Jason Statham handing over a thrashin' to stuntman Kenny Waymack Jr.! Afterwards, Get Off The Ground with Tempest Freerunning's own Gabe Nuñez, and watch Kung Fu Heroes's own Wes Scarpias as he busts out some sharp moves of his own!

New short film content is also coming, and for this, we have a few new trailers - the first comes from director Florian Metzner's new crime short, Aslan, about young Turkish martial arts fighter who travels to Germany to rescue his long lost, wayward brother from Berlin's criminal underworld; Germany's own Movie-Do desihned the action, and while the project initially had a teaser back in 2011, it now appears to be resurging with a pending release. Erkan Acar, Alexander Schubert and Lilian Viegas star. Beneath that, you'll also find a trailer for the new 20-minute martial arts sports drama short, Eye To Eye starting Martin Chan and Darren Holmquist which sees two Tae Kwon Do instructors settling their differences for the sake of their dojang.

And of course, the fighting continues with several new online gems - the first two come directly from the Noobtown Monkeys channel with one spoofing competition over noodles, and the other pitting tricking against b-boy prowess. Also following are a new freerunning action short from Umewaka Naotomo titled Parkour Ninja Assassins, Sami Huhtala and Arman Ansari's newest performances in Albania with action design by Ramin Sohrab, the first of a three part MMA action endeavor between Team Alpha Male and Glass Pixel Studios featuring Justin Buchholz and Dustin Akbari, Ashley Beck's latest gem, Conflict with performances by Adam Smith and Craig Canning, and Jeff Lunzaga's latest sci-fi action comedy short, Hetja 2, continuing the longstanding reign of hyper-reality filmmaking where all the women are hot, everyone knows kung fu and shoots lasers, pork buns are awesome and no one has any idea!

Feel free to subscribe to these channels and click here if you missed last week's Hit List. If you have a QUALITY project you would like presented on here in the form of a short, trailer or a reel, hit us at filmcombatsyndicate@gmail.com