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.

KUNG FURY Unleashes Its Fury Online Today!

Filmmaker and Kickstarter success story David Sandberg is likely having a really good year right now. Having started from almost nothing but an idea, a small crew, a nostaligic appreciation for the 1980's and love for things fantastic of the decade therin, his newest half-hour short, Kung Fury is about to kick its way online starting at 3:00pm EST/12:00 PST with a televised premiere on El Rey Network at 6:30pm EST/5:30pm CT.. And yes, this is all a pretty big deal too with a feature-length picture also in the works in the wake of the shortfilm's notable reception at the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes this month.

KUNG FURY is an over-the-top action comedy written and directed by David Sandberg. The movie features: arcade-robots, dinosaurs, nazis, vikings, norse gods, mutants and a super kung fu-cop called Kung Fury, all wrapped up in an 80s style action packed adventure. 

Kung Fury takes place in a variety of exotic locations; 1980s Miami, Asgard and Germany in the 1940s, to name a few. With a limited budget to work with, we had to solve this by shooting most of the scenes against a greenscreen backdrop. 

Kung Fury was funded mainly through a Kickstarter campaign, where people from all around the world showed their support for this crazy project. David worked on the film for a more than a year with almost no budget but a strong vision, with the help of friends and family. Most of the film has already been shot, but additional filming and lots of visual effects remain to be done. 

The film will be around 30 minutes long and released for free on the internet.

Kung Fury is also being made available on VoD courtesy of Under The Milky Way as well along with some cool new merchandise now available over at the official website, including posters, shirts the official soundtrack on Vinyl and much more. Bear this in mind as you've read this article this far with just hours and minutes as of this write-up before Sandberg unleashes his Fury to the world. Mind the countdown and enjoy!

Cannes 2015: 80's Martial Arts Fantasy Flick, KUNG FURY, Gets Distribution

It's been a fantastic journey for independent filmmaker, David Sandberg and his team at Laser Unicorns in the past few years, and I don't use the word "fantastic" too loosely. His mission to conceive his latest neon-lit labor of love, Kung Fury, in its grandiose adherence to the lasting cult fandom of all things 1980's-oriented and whimsical, hasn't been an easy one to accomplish, and were it not for the explosively successful crowdfunding campaign that earned him and his skeleton film crew three times over their original goal, it's safe to say that the project likely wouldn't have picked up as much steam as it has, especially in this climate.

Save for its experimental nature, Sandberg's got credentials and he applied them quite well in a such a workable proof-of-concept, now accompanied with even more prominence by way of singer and actor David Hasselhoff as of earlier this month performing a high-energy kick-ass theme song for the film. Yes, to this day as Kung Fury took to the Directors' Fortnight slot at Cannes, this project has been nothing short of a big deal with the promise of a 30-minute shortfilm release looming, as well as the prospects of a feature film production. And with regard to the shortfilm, the word from Screendaily is that Under The Milky Way has officially picked it up for VOD distribution on May 28, 2015 in to release English-language territories, along with Scandinavia, Germany, Russia, Spain and Latin America.

Sandberg, who wrote and directed the shortfilm, stars as its lead - a rogue martial arts detective forced to find his way back to present day 1980's Miami when an attempt to time travel back to Nazi Germany and avenge his friend's death at the hands of Adolf Hitler: Kung Führer, accidentally sends him to the Viking Age. It's all downhill from there as our hero races against time crosses and paths with dinosaurs, Norse gods, machine gun-wielding Viking hotties, killer robots and much more - all in a visionary display of over-the-top action, martial arts and spectacle that shamelessly defies gravity and physics.

If this is your first time hearing of Kung Fury, you're more than welcome to revisit the latest music video, and keep your eyes peeled for more info!

H/T: Screendaily

Watch The New Music Video For KUNG FURY Featuring David Hasselhoff!

The highly successful crowdfunding and subsequent production of Laser Unicorn's upcoming online free release, Kung Fury, is finally headed toward a late May release. The project has garnered plenty of attention in the past year as independent filmmaker and actor David Sandberg launched funding for the project in stellar fashion with mind-blowing footage that harkens back to just the correct tone of 80's outlandish sci-fi cheese and flair one could take in.

Needless to say, as much as this was a small-budgeted indie actioner with a skeleton crew, Kung Fury is proof that where applicable, the vision is what matters. And it's a winning vision at that: a rogue martial arts cop in the futuristic neon-lit 1980's who accidentally rides a keyboard into an 8-bit portal through to the viking age while trying to kill Hitler - Yes, this one is definitely for the niche it was meant for, and it's coming next month. Alas, we have a new music video now circulating the web with the one and only David Hasselhoff singing the title track from the new film, True Survivor, and it's likely the best thing you'll see today.

Watch it below!