THE HIT LIST - July 27, 2015

This past week was pretty busy for me, so content has been slower than usual. But, that doesn't mean I haven't been keeping up with with what's happening in independent material and other matters of visual feats of sports and athleticism of which you will see plenty.

Time to get things rolling, and as always with a new playlist of stunt and training reels with performances by Aaron Gassor in full Sith mode, stunt players Moussa Sako, Luciano Arnieri, Deangelo Harding, Laura Beamer, Hayley Wright, Jesse Haus, Jennifer Li, Chistopher Leps, Mallory Thompson, Jwaundace Candace, Jared Losano, Sina Ali, the latest action director reel by Mark Mottram featuring scenes from the 2014 thriller, The November Man, and a new director reel by lensman and action director Godefroy Ryckewaert.

For the next leg, while I don't always feature freerunning in these, gems featuring any aspect of stunt performance are welcome with solid video production to boot. Damien Walters himself has since applied this in a new video of his own in a new video where he pretty much freeruns while engulfed in flames. It's not the first time I've seen this particular stunt, but it's also seldom done since the last time I'd seen a traceur on fire was about two years ago, which is pretty amazing.

Walters kicked off the new year in great fashion as well with the release of Matthew Vaughan's Kingsman: The Secret Service in which he performed stunts and helped train in the fight action as well, and he also put together an impressive short video ahead of the film's release. This is a guy that really knows his stuff, so I wouldn't fall asleep on him.

Other videos to accompany this segment include a new globetrotting reel featured on Team Farang's new channel in which parkour wunderkinds Luci Romberg, Anan Anwar and Jason Paul went leaps and bounds around Los Angeles, Bangkok and Japan.. thus the perks of being a traceur; you literally get to run around the world. Not. Even. Kidding - And speaking of, you will also find Romberg's latest video in the form of a submission sampler among a playlist of several now online for this year's Red Bull: Art Of Motion completion in the lush outskirts of Oia, Greece. I didn't include them all in this playlist because there are so many, but these are the ones that stood out to me while fishing through them.

Submissions ended today as well, so click here to say hello to the fanpage and learn more about the event!

While we are on the subject of athletic competition, martial arts trickerd from across the country are being invited out to East Windsor in Connecticut for Battle Of Fury 2015. Tricking gatherings are full of electricity with badass performances by young and inspired martial arts purveyors and experts from nearly all walks of life, which is worthy of noting as much as the phenomenon has taken shape in recent years, so help keep the spirit alive and if you're interested, headover to the link to get your tickets today and check out the promo for the event below!

Well into the new year, little is known about the future endeavors of Just Kidding Films duo Bart Kwan and Joe Jo outside of their usual feats of comedic spectacle. However, whatever their later aspirations may be, it clearly involves martial arts, and they've undergone quite a bit of training for some time now with martial artist, actor and action trainer, Force Storm Entertainment's own Noah Fleder. This week, Kwan and Jo are offering up another journal entry enviting subscribers of their network into a day of weapons training at South Coast Martial Arts.

Keep in mind, martial arts training is some serious stuff, especially with weapons...although clearly that doesn't take away from any of the hilarity you're about to see. They really do put the 'stick' in "slapstick". Watch please.

Alas, we've come to the last leg of this week's Hit List and the fight stuff is a bit light this time around, but still worth lending an audience to. First up is a trailer for the August 3 premiere for the new webseries, Warigami, a vengeful tale of martial arts and fantasy where paper is the deadliest weapon of choice.

The proceeding two videos thereafter include a new group test fight by Gay Alexandre with Thomas Lorber leading the badassery, and the newest fight short from the growing crew over at Wolf Stunts titled, The Bag.

The next video comes from director Andy Hourahine with the new shortfilm, Karate Girl: Brawl. Produced by Blair Johannes, the project sequelizes last year's Karate Girl: Streetfight with martial artist Julia Hourahine back once more and leading a story that takes our martial arts heroine's journey into further contemplation. The project here takes on a more spiritual shape here, and with your help, her path can go even further, so subscribe to the project's fanpage and lend your support, accordingly.

And lastly, and all the better for it, is a filmmaker who I've rambled about for nearly as long as I've run this blog. Stuntman and oft-filmmaker Emmanuel Manzanres has returned to charm the hell out of the online action fanbase once more with a spectacular new group offering in the new short, Monster. FMA purveyor and action actor Bryan Sloyer plays our captive forced to fight from the bloodthirsty clutches of four goons led by Jerry Quill in a scrumptious onslaught of hand-bound fistcuffs and full-fledged, no-holds-barred bat-cracking, headbashing, flesh-wounding facial reconstruction of only the brutal kind. This jewel of a video is literally so good it hurts, and bares all the markings of what it truly means to create quality content.

Someone get these people on a TV show please. Who must I bake cookies for in order for this to happen?

*sigh*.. Watch below, in awe.

A few more honorable mentions go out this week to independent filmmaer Vlad Rimburg's latest fan reel attributed to legendary action star Jean-Claude Van Damme, as well as actress and filmmaker Toy Lei for her Best Actress and Best Action Film victory among the winners this year's 11th installation of the 72-Hour Shootout competion hosted by the Asian American Film Lab in NYC for her new short, Boxer. The short is currently not available to the web yet, but the stills are still available in case you missed them...

...As for all else, feel free to view last week's Hit List roster in case you need catching up, and if you have QUALITY content that could use an audience, send it over to filmcombatsyndicate@gmail.com

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!