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:

ARCHENEMY: Catch Joe Manganiello In The Dark Fantasy Crime Thriller This February On DVD And Blu-Ray From RLJE

AMC Networks’s RLJE Films officially announced its DVD and Blu-Ray release of dark fantasy thriller, Archenemy, for February 16, 2021. The film is directed by Adam Egypt Mortimer (Daniel Isn’t Real, Some Kind of Hate), and stars Joe Manganiello (“True Blood”), Skylan Brooks (“Empire”), Zolee Griggs (“Wu-Tang: An American Saga”), Paul Scheer (“Black Monday”), Amy Seimetz (Pet Semetary) and Glenn Howerton (“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”). Archenemy released in select theaters late last year following its limited festival run. The film sees Manganiello in then role of Max Fist, a homeless, local drunk who espouses to anyone willing to listen, about his former life as a superhero on the planet Chromium prior to falling into wormhole through time and space, and landing on Earth only to lose his powers. The only one paying any attention at this stage is Hamster (Skylan Brooks), an hungry street reporter vying for a new […]

THE SHAOLIN TEMPLE: LEGEND OF DEBAO Sees Wang Baoqiang Pay Homage To A Kung Fu Classic

Lee B. Golden III

It’s been about thirty years or so since a screening of Chang Hsin-yan’s 1982 Jet Li starrer, Shaolin Temple, had a definitive impact on a young and inspired Wang Baoqiang (Kung Fu Killer, Detective Chinatown 3). The actor himself, bred into martial arts at the age of six before his own temple training a few years later, talks a bit of this in the first teaser now online for The Shaolin Temple: Legend Of Debao. Directed by Stanley Tong (Jackie Chan’s First Strike, Vanguard), the film is reportedly set to launch IQIYI’s super movie channel as a Premium Video on Demand (PVoD) release beginning on February 12 – in time to kick off China’s Spring Festival, according to the Global Times. The move signals a business model proven to work since last year’s PVoD release of Kenji Tanigaki’s Donnie Yen action comedy, Enter The Fat Dragon, amid theater closures due […]

Well Go USA’s RUSSIAN RAID Storms Online With The Official U.S. Trailer

Lee B. Golden III

Denis Kryuchkov’s new action thriller now has an official trailer with Well Go USA Entertainment poised to release Russian Raid on Digital, Blu-Ray and DVD from March 9. The film reportedly takes its inspiration from Gareth Evans’ 2011 martial-arts hit The Raid, with renowned stuntman Ivan Kotik (Dragonblade, Outcast, Legendary) heading the cast for Kryuchkov’s feature debut. Long after the murder of his father—a secret agent killed in a missile factory raid—former special forces operative Nikita (played by renowned stuntman Ivan Kotik) returns to Russia as a mercenary. He leads an elite team on a top-dollar heist targeting the same facility, but no one else knows his true objective is revenge. Kotik is joined by Alexander Krasovsky (winner of the Moscow Championship and Russian Cup in hand-to-hand combat), Elias Antonenko (Psychos, The Legend of Kolovrat, Battle), Vladimir Mineev (world heavyweight kickboxing champion), Nikita Kologrivy, Sophya Ozerova, and Kirill Sarychev (President […]

EXILED: THE CHOSEN ONES Sequel Officially Greenlit, Circles ‘The Night Comes For Us’ Star Zack Lee

Lee B. Golden III

Filmmaker Ranjeet S. Marwa announced a sequel is in the works for Exiled: The Chosen Ones, his dystopian survival action thriller starring Singaporean actor Sunny Pang (Headshot, The Night Comes For Us). The announcement was made among several other details during a Verbal Nectar Podcast interview late Tuesday evening on The Movie Dojo YouTube channel hosted by Preston Downey, a.k.a. Phat Samurai Guy. Up first, of course, is Exiled: The Chosen Ones, which is Marwa’s latest work in his eleven-year history as he looks to ante-up his profile in genre cinema for broader audiences. The film takes place in a future dystopia where a man-made virus fails to clamp down on the world’s population, a preamble which then sees imprisoned Yakuza hitman Hiro (Pang), forced to compete in a death game with other prisoners while the rich place their bets. Marwa took to the podcast to allude to a possible […]

A MEANS TO A BEGINNING: A Word With HAYMAKER Star And Director Nick Sasso

Lee B. Golden III

Friday will see the launch of actor and martial artist Nick Sasso’s new film, Haymaker, from Gravitas Pictures and Kamikaze Dogfight. The film is years in the making, with Sasso already several credits in film and television and now paving the way for his own debut in a starring and directing capacity. Sasso wrote the pic and joins actress Nomi Ruiz on screen, as well as off to produce, with a story that centers on Nick a beleagured former fighter-turned-bouncer who rescues Nomi, a nightclub performer from a sexual assault. When Nomi then hires Nick as her personal bodyguard, the two jettison on a globetrotting adventure that will embark the pair on a journey of teetering romance, dramatic upheaval and self-discovery, and ultimately, a turning point that could very well be the lynchpin Nick needed to make his rebound in the ring. The concept here is the most beautiful to […]

RAGING FIRE: A War Of Words, Bullets And Fists Of Fury In The Official Trailer For Donnie Yen’s New Thriller

Lee B. Golden III

The countdown is officially on as we witness the latest to arise from the campaign for upcoming crime actioner, Raging Fire. Donnie Yen and Nicholas Tse (Dragon Tiger Gate, Bodyguards And Assassins) headline the pic which centers on a righteous cop forced to go head-to-head with his vengeful former protégé-turned-ex-con in lieu of his harrowing crime spree. The film, opening overseas on July 30, ultimately signals director Benny Chan’s final film following his passing last August, upon which action and stunt multihyphenate Kenji Tanigaki (Big Brother, G.I. Joe Origins: Snake Eyes) was handed the reins to finish post production. We also have a few new bits of poster art available in the gallery below as well. Take a look below!

RAGE: Catch The Official Trailer For John Balazs’s New Crime Drama From Gravitas Ventures

Lee B. Golden III

There’s a certain point of pride when covering films and much of it has to do with the occasional correspondence with filmmakers behind the scenes. I’ve followed director John Balazs for about four years now since he ramped up Dancer, a recent action short that’s now poised for feature film production in the months to come, and so it gives me great pleasure to be able to share the trailer for Balazs’s latest feature endeavor, Rage, now online Gravitas Ventures ahead of its February 23 VOD release in the U.S. and Australia. When a violent home invasion brings an already troubled marriage closer to the brink, a husband must come to terms with his own indiscretions, in a desperate move to seek forgiveness that will bring them both to the point of no return. I’m totally taking credit for the synopsis above provided by GV, and I especially thank Balazs […]

News Briefs: Netflix’s THE FORMULA, BLACK SITE Casts, TOMB RAIDER Sequel Update, Hart Enters The BORDERLANDS

Lee B. Golden III

First from Asbury Park Pictures is the February production start at the Gold Coast set for action thriller Black Site. Starring Michelle Monaghan, Jason Clarke and Jai Courtney, Sophia Banks will direct from a script by Jinder Ho which centers on a group of officers based in a labyrinthine top-secret CIA black site who must fight for their lives in a cat-and-mouse game against Hatchet, a brilliant and infamous high-value detainee-turned-escapee whose mysterious and deadly agenda has far-reaching and dire consequences. Pic hails Asbury, Story Bridge Films and The Mission Entertainment. (DEADLINE) Gerard McMurray (Burning Sands, The First Purge) will write and direct John Boyega and Robert DeNiro in The Formula for Netflix. The film follows “a Formula One racing prodigy is forced to become a getaway driver to save the only family he has left.” McMurray is also producing via his company, Buppie Productions. Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro […]

RLJE Films Nabs PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND

Lee B. Golden III

Ahead of its forthcoming Sundance world premiere, RLJE Films is officially announcing its acquistion of action thriller, Prisoners Of The Ghostland. Sono Sion (Why Don’t You Play In Hell?) directs the pic from a script by Aaron Hendry and Rexa Sixo Safai (Western Wonderland). The film stars Nicolas Cage (Mandy), Sofia Boutella (The Mummy), Nick Cassavetes (Face/Off), Bill Moseley (Texas Chainsaw Franchise), Tak Sakaguchi (Tokyo Tribe) and Yuzuka Nakaya (The Forest of Love). Prisoners Of The Ghostland is set in the treacherous frontier city of Samurai Town where a ruthless bank robber (Cage) is sprung from jail by wealthy warlord The Governor (Moseley), whose adopted granddaughter Bernice (Boutella) has gone missing. The Governor offers the prisoner his freedom in exchange for retrieving the runaway. Strapped into a leather suit that will self-destruct within three days, the bandit sets off on a journey to find the young woman—and his own path […]

EXILED: THE CHOSEN ONES Official Trailer Takes Aim At The Brutal, Bloody Badlands

Lee B. Golden III

The past year has shown an almost daunting change of the tide for filmmaker Ranjeet S. Marwa, thanks in large part to the pandemic last year and its drastic affects the world around. Plans to direct Blood Rush as his inaugural ball for action movie audiences took a strong pivot to instead releasing a mini-doc on the pandemic’s affect on Asian cinema productions, as well as the development of multiple other film projects in order to ante up his profile some. One project that’s been simmering since last Fall is Exiled: The Chosen Ones, shot conveniently in a contained and Covid-safe environment to avoid scruitiny over safety concerns on the Birmingham, U.K. set. The sweetener here, of course, alludes to the casting of Sunny Pang and Hannah Al-Rashid, two of Southeast Asia’s foremost talents hailing from shared credits such as Mike Wiluan’s Buffalo Boys, and Timo Tjahjanto’s The Night Comes […]

HAYMAKER Review: A Modest Fight Drama Sealed With A Kiss

Lee B. Golden III

Having only worked on a small handful of film and TV productions, it’s with Haymaker that visual effects artist Nick Sasso officially makes the case for his starring and directing debut. Haymaker immerses you into the tumult of a professional fighter named Nick (Sasso) whose career-ending defeat has since landed him a job as club bouncer. It’s not long before he catches an attempted rape in-progress and swoops into rescue club singer, Nomi (Nomi Ruiz), from her would-be attacker, only to get unceremoniously fired by the club’s seedy manager – a prospective move on the part of Nomi, who instead hires him as her personal bodyguard. Their development together is already pre-conceived by the fact that Nomi feels safe around him. This is conjoined by the highs and lows of the slowly simmering shared tension between them at times, with Nomi, slowly peeling away at Nick’s rigid, tough and somewhat […]

ARROW January Attractions: Arrow Shorts Collection, JSA, Tokyo Fist, We Need To Talk About Kevin, And More!

Arrow Review: Park Chan-Wook’s JOINT SECURITY AREA (JSA), A Lamentation Of Peace Through A Darkly Pragmatic Lens

Lee B. Golden III

It was around 2005 or ’06 when I finally managed to observe the work of director Park Chan-wook with an online buy of Oldboy. At this point, Park had already reveled in the ceremony of his previous work, notably with his 2000 film, Joint Security Area (JSA), which still stands on ceremony to this day with film fans as one of the most highly regarded of the last two decades. Set against the backdrop of intense relations between the North and the South, Park’s tale of murder bodes as more of a multi-layered epic drama going about thirty minutes in; The film is set in Panmunjom where soldiers from both Koreas hold the fort on opposite ends of the ‘Bridge of No Return’, initially introducing Swiss-Korean army major Sophie Jean (Lee Young-ae) to the story as the pointwoman for the Neutral Nations Supervisory Committee in its investigation of what happened […]

GODZILLA VS. KONG Trailer Asks ‘Who Bows To Who?!’

Lee B. Golden III

While the past week or so finally gave way to the teeniest bits of footage WarnerMedia could affordably dole out ahead of its Warner Bros. Pictures slate for 2021, it wasn’t without some serious wrangling at the table with the company enduring quite the brouhaha from some folks at the notion of seeing its studio titles land on smaller screens – a reasonable choice either way for a country where going to the movies during a pandemic is still a gamble. At long last though, a deal was finally reached earlier this month in particular with Adam Wingard’s latest, Godzilla vs. Kong, which is currently set to bow in theaters and IMAX, and for thirty days exclusively on HBO Max from March 26. Most of all is that the trailer fans were promised this week is now here, raising all sorts of hell on Earth along with the single-most burning […]

Martial Arts Comedy UNLUCKY STARS Gets The Long-Awaited Blu-Ray Treatment From Gold Ninja Video

Lee B. Golden III

It’s been quite a while since an announcement on this, and there’s good reason. Nonetheless, actor and filmmaker Dennis Ruel‘s partly crowdfunded 2015 martial arts comedy, Unlucky Stars, is now available on Blu-Ray from Gold Ninja Video. Ruel made his directorial debut on the film in 2012, a successful culmination of local stunt performers and up-and-coming actors working in Los Angeles, California who’ve cut their teeth in the online scene dating back to the early 2000s. Starring Ruel and alongside actor Ken Quitugua (upcoming The Paper Tigers), the film centers on two private investigators who find themselves embroiled in a life-or-death case involving a wayward Peruvian action star, and the bookie he’s indebted to. Also starring are Sam Hargrave (Blood & Bone, Extraction), Jose Montesinos, Giovannie Espiritu, Sari Sabella and Vlad Rimburg, and with cameos by industry stunt multi-hyphenates, Simon Rhee and J.J. Perry. Originally a member of The Stunt […]

News Briefs: BOND 25 + Other Release Date Delays; THE SINNERS Sells From Arclight; RAGE Lands At Gravitas For U.S.; Guy Ritchie Actioner Casts Grant, More

Lee B. Golden III

Cary Joji Fukunaga’s No Time To Die now faces another delay with a date instead slated for October 8. The film, which sees Daniel Craig reprising the role for one final outing as secret agent, James Bond, sees our hero forced out of his tranquil life with a rescue mission that turns out to far more treacherous than expected. No Time To Die was previously set for a November 2019 release before enduring multiple delays and setbacks due to the global pandemic which affected theatrical exhibitors, in addition to the tens of millions more spent by MGM in advertising. Craig is joined by Rami Malek, Léa Seydoux, Lashana Lynch, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Christoph Waltz, Ralph Fiennes, Ana de Armas, Billy Magnussen, Rory Kinnear, David Dencik and Dali Benssalah. Other film delays include Sony’s Morbius now moved to January 21, 2022, and Uncharted, to February 11, 2022. Writer […]

LEGEND OF DARK RIDER Pitch Trailer Rides Online, Sword In Hand And Ready For Battle

Lee B. Golden III

For almost twenty years at present, filmmaker Titus Paar (The Perfect Weapon) has been minding the production of what he billed back in a 2017 interview with The Movie Elite as “a Barbarian, Dark, Fantasy in Swedish snow-landscape”. A piece of that vision finally began taking shape around 2012 when Paar took initiative to craft what would become his multi-award winning 2016 shortfilm, Legend Of Dark Rider: The Beginning. At twenty minutes, the short is currently available on YouTube as of this report, and since then, Paar has been using the momentum to try and acquire funding for Legend Of Dark Rider, a process that likely had its stops and starts with at least one webpage revealing a 2018 release. Thankfully this hasn’t at all deterred Paar from moving forward, just as he did last year putting together a pitch trailer which is now online as of Wednesday, with a […]

GODZILLA VS. KONG Poster Teases A Devastating Battle To Come

Lee B. Golden III

Nevermind all the fan art that’s made the rounds in the last few years, Legendary has unleashed the kraken with the first official key art for Godzilla vs. Kong which is now slated for a March day-and-date theatrical release alongside HBO Max from March 5. Adam Wingard is at the helm for this latest installment of the saga that began with Godzilla (2014) for a franchise that still stands the test of time with multiple films in its wake, as well as an upcoming animated series landing soon on Netflix. Legends collide as Godzilla and Kong, the two most powerful forces of nature, clash on the big screen in a spectacular battle for the ages. As a squadron embarks on a perilous mission into fantastic uncharted terrain, unearthing clues to the Titans’ very origins and mankind’s survival, a conspiracy threatens to wipe the creatures, both good and bad, from the […]

BORN A CHAMPION Review: To Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, With Love

Lee B. Golden III

Every fighter has a story to tell – each topped with reasons and events attributing why it is they do what they do. In the role that actor Sean Patrick Flanery portrays in director Alex Ranarivelo’s latest, Born A Champion, there’s a ton to explore here, and much more as the story progresses right down to midway in the end credits. Born A Champion comes from a star and director pair who bring a clear and driven vision to the table, using all the necessary ingredients to craft together a gritty, entertaining MMA drama. It certainly helps that Flanery, who himself has been a purveyor of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu since 2001 and is now Gracie system black belt, co-wrote the pic with Ranarivelo. It’s especially understandable for anyone who never knew this about Flanery (myself included until about 2018, to be perfectluly honest), particularly for fans of martial arts movies. […]

KUNG FU GHOST: Lazy Daisy Gets Her Kicks In A First Clip From The New Independent Martial Arts Comedy

Lee B. Golden III

Independent filmmaker Jennifer Linch is getting things off the ground this week with an extended clip of her feature debut, Kung Fu Ghost. The new kung fu comedy, which is currently seeking a summer release, signals the launchpad of Linch’s independent Nameless Studios film banner in which she’s already corralled a roster of accolades and screenings of her shortfilms in the last several years. Daisy inherits a spooky old estate from her late grandfather, a martial arts master whom she never met. When she shows up on the property, she soon discovers the house is haunted by her grandfather’s spirit and the ghost of a mysterious man named William. When treasure-hunting criminals descend on Daisy’s new home, she is forced to call on her new supernatural friends to fend them off. The clip above, which premiered on Tuesday via Linch’s Nameless Studios website, teases Linch in the starring role of […]

JALIKATTU: Malayalam Action Thriller On Track To U.S. Release From Drafthouse, XYZ Films

Lee B. Golden III

Malayalam action thriller, Jalikattu, is coming soon with a U.S. release on hand according to press announcements and trade news this week. As Variety‘s Manori Ravindran notes, the Lijo Jose Pelissery-directed film will be the least relaunch in distribution for Drafthouse Films, alongside XYZ Films with plans for theatrical, digital and Blu-Ray releases. The pic follows the upheaval that unfolds when a butcher’s buffalo escapes and runs amok through a remote village in the hill ranges of Kerala, in southern India. A mission to catch and kill the deadly animal quickly unleashes the villagers’ own primal instincts, culminating in a senseless and self-destructive frenzy of violence. The film stars Antony Varghese, Chemban Vinod Jose, Sabumon Abdusamad and Santhy Balachandran. It is produced by O Thomas Panicker, and executive produced by Naushad Salahudin and Guneet Monga (“The Lunchbox”) alongside XYZ Films. Jalikattu, currently India’s nomination for an Oscar this Spring, was […]