Lee B. Golden III

About Lee B. Golden III

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Native New Yorker. Been writing for a long time now, and I enjoy what I do. Be nice to me!

Posts by Lee Golden:

NYAFF XX Review: Jéro Yun’s FIGHTER, A Boxing Drama That Delivers A Win Beyond The Ring

Lee B. Golden III

If you’re into films with actors making their debuts, and if you especially enjoy sports dramas, Jéro Yun’s Fighter may just be more your speed. I’m not at all sure what the casting process was here, but it was awesome being introduced to actress Lim Seong-mi in her first lead role and absolutely killing it, and the ceremony she’s been receiving ever since. Starring as a “North Korean Refugee” makes for even more interesting cinema, especially given the ongoing state of the region and its dichotomy. Seeing how Lim absorbs the character with utmost consumption as she embarks on her character’s journey, firstly with a voice over narration about how South Korean would describe her – hence the quotations above. An ex-soldier and refugee settling into her new place just a few months after attending a re-education center, Jina Ree’s main focus, per her broker, is to concentrate on making […]

ASSAULT ON RIO BRAVO Sequel Gets The Greenlight, Cameras To Roll In November

Lee B. Golden III

ETA Films, Hollywood Storm and San Rafael Productions have officially greenlit a sequel to Joe Cornet’s upcoming Western, Assault On Rio Bravo, now aiming for a November start. The announcement over the weekend cites the film’s positive reception by distributors at this year’s Cannes Film Market. Joe Cornet (Promise, Prayer for the Damned) will direct and executive produce with a script by Craig Hamman (Showdown in Manila), and will see the return of lead actor Alexander Nevsky (Black Rose) to both star, as well as produce. Other recurring cast members will be Cornet, along with Matthias Hues (Dark Angel), Natalie Denise Sperl (Mank), and actress/supermodel Anna Oris among others. Eric Brenner (Crazy Heart) will exec produce, with a score by Sean Murray (Call of Duty: Black Ops) will create a musical score, action and stunt sequences once again by Art Camacho (Half Past Dead), and Sam Wilkinson (Paydirt) returning again […]

RAGING FIRE: A Cornered Donnie Yen Flips The Script And Brings The Pain In A New Clip!

Lee B. Golden III

I more or less tend to stave off of clip-sharing, as tedious as it is… At any rate, this might be the only clip I share from late director Benny Chan’s newest and final film, Raging Fire, which is already released overseas ahead of upcoming North American premieres at Fantasia and NYAFF, and nationwide via Well Go USA on August 13. Thus, consider this your reminder to get tickets where and when you plan to catch the film accordingly. The rundown? Donnie Yen plays the leader of a special unit of cops on a mission to investigate a team of mercs responsible for an explosive series of murders and attacks on his own department. The catch? It could be his former mentee from months earlier, played with a sterling performance by Nicholas Tse, and you’re welcome to check out my early NYAFF review to learn more about this amazing curtain […]

ECHO 8: Maria Tran’s Aussie Feature Debut Thriller Spawns Premiere Key Art

Lee B. Golden III

A little over a year and a half since our last update, director Maria Tran’s feature debut, Echo 8, is finally breathing signs of life once more with an official poster as of last week Friday. Written by Elizabeth H. Vu (Mr. Ghost, The Perception) Echo 8 centers on a highly trained assassin who finds herself in a strange house with no memories of how she got there, in the wake of a specialized mission gone awry; Think: Jaume Collet-Serra’s Unknown by way of Renny Harlin’s The Long Kiss Goodnight. The self-funded project, with filming completed safely in-part during the 2020 pandemic, hails from Tran’s Phoenix Eye banner where she and production cohorts Therese Chen and Nancy Trieu have been working on their film slate with a number of titles. Echo 8 also stars Tran along with Takashi Hara and David Vuong. Peep the art below and stand by for more […]

PATRIOT: SELAMATKAN INDONESIA Teaser: Cecep Arif Rahman Returns In New Epic Superhero Short Coming Soon

PATRIOT: SELAMATKAN INDONESIA Teaser: Cecep Arif Rahman Returns In New Epic Superhero Short Coming Soon

Lee B. Golden III

The undoubtedly gargantuan task of manifesting an entire cinematic universe is never easy, with Indonesia’s previously-announced aspirations for the Bumilangit Cinematic Universe serving up to be quite the task. The good news is Joko Anwar’s 2019 film, Gundala, helped get the ball rolling, which now brings us to (what looks like) an unrelated endeavor in the form of upcoming shortfilm, Patriot: Selamatkan Indonesia, which has since launched a teaser as of late July. Starring Jaymes Riyanto (writer and producer of Ajari Aku Islam) who is also directing from his own script, Patriot: Selamatkan Indonesia hails from RA Pictures and Royal Sumatra Group subsidiary, Royal Pictures, and is based on the writings of retired general, AM Hendropriyono, and is set to be the precursor for a much larger film production down the line. It centers on a Chinese-Islamic solider forced to come to terms with the extremist demographics of his believes […]

Brad Allan

[UPDATED] In Memoriam: Brad Allan (1973-2021)

Lee B. Golden III

UPDATE (8.8.21, 5:55p.m. EST): Actor Daniel Wu took to Instagram on Sunday to mourn the death of pioneering stunt wunderkind, actor and martial artist Brad Allan. Wu, in expressing his condolences and reflecting on his own memories of Allan, confirmed that the death was the result of a heart attack. “I remember when Brad just joined the Jackie Chan Stunt Team back in the 90’s. I had just joined Jackie’s management group as an actor and we worked on a couple movies together including Gorgeous and Gen-X Cops. Being wushu guys, we always had a lot to talk about. He was quiet and serious and always demanded perfection of himself. I always admired that part of him. Brad went on to not only become an amazing stunt man but choreographer and coordinator as well. Always brining the Hong Kong style to big Western productions. He did some really innovative work […]

RUPTURE First Official Poster Teases Neon-Lit Cyberpunk Action Thriller Starring Mark Strange [EXCLUSIVE]

Lee B. Golden III

Something tells me that director Ranjeet S. Marwa is gonna take just a little more time rolling out the assets for his newest film, Rupture. That especially includes the first official poster which you can now view at the very bottom of the page. The project is the second following Exiled: The Chosen Ones, which had a heavy campaign ramp-up during and after post-production, and I am told that it’s still pending a release. So to say the least, I suspect 2022 will definitely be the year viewers will finally get acquainted just a little more (…I’m thinking festivals this year. *knocks on wood*) More to the point, it’ll be even better momentum for UK actor and martial artist Mark Strange since paying brief martial arts cinema homage opposite actor Danny Chan in Ip Man 4: The Finale. Strange, who also led the cast in Chee Keong Cheung’s sci-fi action […]

BULL: Don’t Miss The Official Trailer For Paul Andrew Williams’ Fantasia-Selected Crime Thriller

Lee B. Golden III

As the 25th Fantasia International Film Festival launches today, folks in the UK may also take a gander at what’s in store with writer and director Paul Andrew Williams’s new film, Bull. Its world premiere will be Friday evening with a second screening then slated for Sunday night, while UK distributor Signature has since unveiled its own official trailer ahead of a pending release date. Bull is a brutal, subversive and wickedly suspenseful revenge thriller written and directed by Bafta®-winner Paul Andrew Williams (London to Brighton), and featuring outstanding performances from an electric Neil Maskell (Kill List, Utopia) and a terrifying David Hayman (Taboo, Vertical Limit) plus Tazmin Outhwaite (Eastenders). After a 10-year absence, former gang enforcer Bull returns to his old haunts to find his missing son and seek revenge on those who double crossed him and left him for dead. Painful secrets from the past will soon be […]

Gordon Lam Ka Tung, Hand Rolled Cigarette

NYAFF XX Review: Chan Kin Long’s HAND ROLLED CIGARETTE, A Story Of Those Made (And Unbroken) In Hong Kong

Lee B. Golden III

The reception is a hugely earned one this year, by and large, for actor and film multi-hyphenate Gordon Lam with currently four films slated to take the floor at this year’s New York Asian Film Festival. Our focus here will be on his headlining role in actor Chan Kin-long’s feature directorial debut, Hand Rolled Cigarette, one of several recipients of First Feature Film Initiative, Film Development Fund back in 2018 and as of last Fall, host to seven Golden Horse Awards nominations, including Best Leading Actor, an awards’ first for Lam. Hand Rolled Cigarette presets its story with the first of multiple flashbacks, firstly to 1996 during Chiu’s (Lam) active service in Hong Kong Military Service Corps. The film denotes that by the time of Hong Kong’s handover from British-era rule back in 1997, there were a number of British-Chinese serving in the Corps who weren’t granted British citizenship, and […]

VENGEANCE IS MINE, ALL OTHERS PAY CASH Trailer: Edwin’s Picaresque Allegory On Cautionary Romance And Revenge

Lee B. Golden III

Indeed, you read the headline correctly as the director solely goes by Edwin, whose film career spans close to eighteen years and a life experience even longer before – such which now shapes his directorial vision, as festival attendees this month at Locarno and TIFF in Toronto rev up to catch his newest film, Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, starring Marthino Lio and Ladya Cheryl. Ajo Kawir is a fighter who fears nothing, not even death. His raging urge to fight is driven by a secret: his impotence. When he crosses paths with a tough female fighter named Iteung, Ajo gets beaten black and blue, but he also falls head over heels in love. Will Ajo’s path lead him to a happy life with Iteung, and, eventually, his own peace of mind? Screendaily unveiled the official trailer a few days ago prior to Edwin’s interview for The Hollywood […]

THE HEART Review: An Uplifting Post-Mortem Redemption Story

Lee B. Golden III

As far as obscure boxing dramas go, it’s understandable if at one point or another, you were trying to keep up with the progress on Liu Fendou’s 2019 boxing drama, The Heart. The film had a nascent niche rollout in the states via Smart Cinema USA following its mainland China release and thankfully, its release has also expanded to a few others. Well into the first half of the film, The Heart jumps back and forth in catching viewers up while telling its concurrent story. The crux? Down-and-out taxi driver Tan Kai (Yang Kun) has long since fallen from grace in the weeks and months after accidentally killing his best friend, Wang Yao (Xu Hou) in the ring during a match sanctioned by their coach. In the course of all this, he becomes fated with a young and aspiring singer named Li Chuan (Xia Zitong), the latest matching recipient of […]

Chad Stahelski

SHIBUMI: Chad Stahelski, 87Eleven Lining Up Assassin Novel Adaptation

Lee B. Golden III

Chad Stahelski continues to accrue even further projects to hopefully adapt for the big screen, his latest being Shibumi, with 87Eleven Productions partners Alex Young and Jason Spitz on board to produce, according to Deadline. Published in 1979, the novel by Trevanian (the pseudonym of Rodney William Whitaker) details the struggle between the “Mother Company,” a conspiracy of energy companies that secretly controls much of the Western world, and a highly skilled assassin named Nicholaï Hel. Casting details remain pending with a writer yet to be put in place, as Stahelski engages his latest action star-studded endeavor with the fourth chapter of the John Wick franchise. Stahelski has been in the film and stunt industry for close to 28 years, segueing into film directing with co-helmer and fellow stunt multi-hyphenate, 87Eleven co-founder David Leitch back in 2014 with the first John Wick film. The franchise starter has since nourished a great deal […]

COPSHOP Trailer: Psychos And Pros In The Throes Of A Deadly Showdown From Director Joe Carnahan

Lee B. Golden III

There’s no question the continuing creative partnership between actor Frank Grillo and director Joe Carnahan has been a flourishing one. That stride continues with the addition of actors Gerard Butler, Alexis Louder and Toby Huss as the official trailer for Copshop launched on Thursday. Screaming through the Nevada desert in a bullet-ridden Crown Vic, wily con artist Teddy Murretto (Frank Grillo) hatches a desperate plan to hide out from lethal hitman Bob Viddick (Gerard Butler): He sucker-punches rookie officer Valerie Young (Alexis Louder) to get himself arrested and locked up in a small-town police station. But jail can’t protect Murretto for long. Viddick schemes his own way into detention, biding his time in a nearby cell until he can complete his mission. When the arrival of a competing assassin (Toby Huss) ignites all-out mayhem, mounting threats force Viddick to get creative if he wants to finish the job and escape […]

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DAFT STATE Casts Leads For Psychological Thriller Shoot This Month

Lee B. Golden III

Christopher Backus (HBO’s “Big Little Lies”, Netflix’s “Mindhunter”, Apple TV+’s “Truth be Told”) and Skye P. Marshall (Netflix’s “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina”, NBC’s “This is Us”, “Black Lightning) will star in Daft State, co-written by Sam Harter and director Chad Bishoff. Cameras are set to roll on the new psychological thriller on location in Omaha, Nebraska from Monday, August 9, 2021. This relentlessly gripping thriller, molded in the vein of classic Hitchcockian suspense masterworks, charts the mysterious psychological destruction of central character Easton (Backus), who is driven to the edge of sanity, and possible self-harm, by those that love him most – his wife (Marshall) and daughter. Will Easton succumb to their increasingly traumatizing pressure, or will he conquer the dark forces at play in his addled psyche? Inny Clemons (Straight Outta Compton, Next Day Air, Netflix’s Sneakerheads, A Lot of Nothing), Lisa Crnic (Paramount’s Clifford the Big Red […]

CATCH THE FAIR ONE: Tribeca Rescue Thriller Fave Lands At IFC Films For Next Year

Lee B. Golden III

Currently a part of this year’s 25th Fantasia International Film Festival line-up, director Josef Kubota Wladyka (“Narcos”, Dirty Hands) is proudly taking the mantle with his sophomore feature, Catch The Fair One, landing at IFC Films for a U.S. release in 2022. Trades broke the news on Wednesday for the upcoming revenge thriller which since broke ground at this year’s Tribeca festivities, winniny the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature, and signaling what’s being described as a “raw breakout performance” from real-life professional boxer, Kali “K.O.” Reis in her screen debut; The first Indigenous fighter to win the International Boxing Association middleweight crown, Reis is also currently the WBA Super lightweight champion. Written by Wladyka from a story developed with Reis, Catch The Fair One is billed as a “propulsive, edge-of-your-seat thriller”. Reis stars as Kaylee “K.O.” Uppashaw, an Indigenous former boxer who plugs herself into the dark and dangerous […]

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THE RETALIATORS: Movie/Music Mash-Up Survival Game Horror To World Premiere At Arrow Video FrightFest This Month

Lee B. Golden III

Tickets and passes are already on sale for this year’s edition of Arrow Video FrightFest, which will run from August 26 through 30. Just in time for things to kick off is the addition of directing duo Samuel Gonzalez Jr. and Bridget Smith’s latest effort, The Retaliators. The trailer had been quietly making the rounds along with a low key roll out of updates via social media with some websites picking up on the trailer, including our own Christina Ortega Phillips weighing in back in April upon exuberantly discovering the bands included in the cast: Papa Roach. Ice Nine Kills. Escape the Fate. Five Finger Death Punch. No, I am not playing that game where you put together a fantasy music festival lineup. These are just some of the bands featured on the soundtrack of THE RETALIATORS. But wait! There’s more. Not only are these groups on the soundtrack, but […]

DON’T BREATHE 2: Stephen Lang Hunts Once More In The New Dark AF Restricted Trailer

Lee B. Golden III

If you enjoyed Fede Alvarez’s Don’t Breathe, the upcoming sequel by the first film’s co-writer, Rodo Sayagues, has you covered. Sony Pictures just unveiled its Dark AF Restricted trailer which you can otherwise click here to check out in case it doesn’t appear above… particularly seeing how Dark AF it is. Oof! The sequel is set in the years following the initial deadly home invasion, where Norman Nordstrom (Stephen Lang) lives in quiet solace until his past sins catch up to him. Also starring are Madelyn Grace and Brendan Sexton III for the film’s August 13 release.

KATE: Mary Elizabeth Winstead Kills For A Day In The Official Trailer

Lee B. Golden III

One thing is especially certain about actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead in the last decade or so: She stands out pretty well in the action genre, though this largely depends on the packaging. I prefer her role in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World over her 2020 outing as Huntress in Birds Of Prey any day, though it’s nice to see she’s kept up the habit this year with Netflix’s latest trailer buzz, Kate. Meticulous and preternaturally skilled, Kate is the perfect specimen of a finely tuned assassin at the height of her game. But when she uncharacteristically blows an assignment targeting a member of the yakuza in Tokyo, she quickly discovers she’s been poisoned, a brutally slow execution that gives her less than 24 hours to exact revenge on her killers. As her body swiftly deteriorates, Kate forms an unlikely bond with the teenage daughter of one of her past victims. […]

THE HUNT: SAVAGE WITHIN Takes Fearless Aim In The Official Poster For Fabien Garcia’s Proof Of Concept Sci-Fi Thriller [EXCLUSIVE]

Lee B. Golden III

Production on writer/director Fabien Garcia’s upcoming sci-fi proof of concept, The Hunt: Savage Within, is just weeks away from its online premiere date set for August 20. In the meantime, Garcia and his team are already putting plans into motion for an early private in-person event screening for the cast and crew, as well as backers of the Indiegogo campaign that helped get this project off the ground through last year. For this, we now have an official poster for the upcoming short proof which you can view below! American-born Filipina actress Madeleine Humphries stars as Sarah, a meek forest ranger who finds herself at the center of an epic battle between elite spec-ops soldiers, and a supreme alien killer known only as “The Trickster”. Also starring are Also starring are Brett Tutor, Lou Wegner, Carla Seneca, Xango Henry, Davis Chong and Amje Elharden, with action and stunt sequences by Garcia, […]

THE BAM: THE WILLIE JOHNSON STORY Trailer: Meet The Master In The New Documentary On August 17!

Lee B. Golden III

Maverick Entertainment is proudly rolling out upcoming documentary, The Bam: The Willie Johnson Story. The film is set to release on August 17 from director Robert Parham, who also produced the doc with Johnson. The gripping story of how martial arts transformed a criminal into a 7-time World Champion, a community leader and a real man. Willie Johnson tells his story through his own words, from the highs to the lows, and how he has triumphed over it all. The doc comes just as Johnson, martial arts champion and multi-hall of famer and co-star of hit TV series WMAC Masters, stays the course with upcoming martial arts indie drama, 1 Out Of 100, among other projects in the works from Johnson’s wheelhouse. He’s on the move, so keep an eye out for all the goings-on and visit Maverick for more info.