THE HIT LIST: September 18, 2017
I did a lot of work this weekend. So, don’t be surprised if things slow down a bit for me this week. At best, I might be able to pace myself and keep going but a little me-time also suffices.
I did a lot of work this weekend. So, don’t be surprised if things slow down a bit for me this week. At best, I might be able to pace myself and keep going but a little me-time also suffices.
I’m still in recovery mode and will likely be so for the next several days. I forgot that’s what happens when you have as much fun as I did for two nights in a row.
Well, at least for me the bad news is that I relapsed again and now I have another cold. That makes two this summer.
The good news is I had stuff to do so I got in some time to write two reviews, one of which you can check out on your own time. As for all else, I had people sending me stuff for the Hit List and there was no way I could pass up sharing it. Some of you know me as much.
Kicking it off this week is a brand new block of jam-packed stunt and action reels starting with the latest from Black Site star, actress and martial artist Samantha Schnitzler via Vimeo. The playlist beneath cues onward from there beginning with legendary stunt coordinator Bruce Law followed by reels from Alyma Dorsey, David Conk, Tyler Witte, Jonathan Pang, Marissa Labog, Lee Gifford, Jyo “Six” Carolino, Leonard Zhang, Ryan Carr, Mami Spéede Ito, Yavuz Topuz and Martial Club’s own Andy Le.
Samantha Schnitzler : Action Reel from Samantha Schnitzler on Vimeo.
As far as promotion goes, some of this is pretty large scale and I only have mostly Vimeo uploads to work with, so my apologies ahead of time. The stuff here is pretty intense and especially with what lies ahead from Felix King and Eric Van Arsdale in the upcoming short, Broken Wing. Stunt and action sequences respectively from Elizabeth Davidovich and choreographer Gui DaSilva aren’t much to sample from here in this teaser but we have Spencer Mulligan engulfed in flames and looking several degrees of pissed. I smell vengeance coming.
Following that is a project I’ve had the pleasure to screen among the workstash of actor, martial artist and budding filmmaker Peter Jang with the new crime thriller, Nothing Is Sacred. Jang and actor Christian Howard present a grim tale of betrayal and redemption where a gang enforcer’s only means of protecting his sister and niece from his adopted mother’s sex trafficking ring is to follow her instructions and kill his brother in-law. After winning Best Action Thriller at the Hollywood International Moving Pictures Film Festival and Los Angeles Independent Film Festival Awards in addition to Best Producer(s) and Best First Time Filmmaker, its next stop will be the Shortz! Film Festival in Chico, CA on July 16th.
Last and far from least is a trailer for Shelagh Rowan-Legg’s second shortfilm, Flow, following a crowdfunding campaign for a dystopian action comedy set in a post-Brexit UK amid an epic battle wherein two female soldiers, Taylor and Smith, are tenaciously fighting a war of their own. Flow stars Jamie Birkett and Lucy Clements and is set to screen on July 29 at Fantasia Festival in accordance with the premiere of Lowell Dean’s action horror sequel, Another Wolfcop.
Of course, there’s also the matter of a newly released photo from the past week if you’re a fan of online action hero, actor and martial artist Eric Jacobus. Blindsided 2 is well underway from director and noted Hollywood stunt professional Clayton Barber with his star currently seen squaring off with fellow actor and martial artist David William No who produced the first short as he does the new installment.
There’s more action to come, but it’s time for a bit of a music break and I tip my hat to stunt coordinator Cory DeMeyers for pointing into the direction of Bad Royale’s latest music video premiere with Silver, All I Can Do. Actor Deangelo Harding leads the way as the hero of his own video game-themed tale as he fights to reunite with his date, actress Bree Essrig, against a horde of bouncers, a wrestler, a kickass tailor, and actor Jarrett Sleeper armed with delicious lemonbars and some deadly moves of his own. Enjoy!
Time to get into the action this week and the first comes courtesy of Vimeo with a late entry from stunt performer Lee Gifford. You’ll find his latest reel in the initial playlist while his own shortfilm contribution here leads the way for this segment of the Hit List with Waheed AlQawasmi’s 2016 action comedy short, Delta Goldfish.
Beneath that is this week’s playlist ripe with a batch of test fight action pieces and shortfilm projects including one that just released today. Dardrex Production‘s own Martin Chan and Leonard Zhang get things started along with the latest test fight collab with Arman Ansari and Douglas Dapaah-Agyemang over in Finland, and YouTube comedic personality, Tiburcio teaching Darren Holmquist and Rustic B. a thing or two in Black Belt vs. Mexican Belt.
We then head off to Marcus Shakesheff and Ashley Beck as they settle their own score at Leavesden Studios in a Star Wars-inspired lightsaber battle to the death before panning over to Wilder Herms 2017 My Rode Reel entry, The Block with Mark Poletti and Julie Zhan. Following that are performers Tatiana DeKhytar and Nicole Mae clashing fisticuffs and cold steel for Dragon Phoenix Entertainment in Weapon Fighter while Matt Philliben and Joe Kras take their pound-for-pound haze to the next level with Bushido Dream.
Continuing the action is filmmaker Danny Leysner whose most recent get-together in Amsterdam with high-caliber action talent and choreographer Joey Ansah saw the Spring release of Leynser’s revenge thriller debut, Cible, starring Geoffrey Thompson as a man afflicted with a near-fatal brain injury that nulls pain, bolstering his vengeful bloodlust against his former crimeboss who murdered the woman he loved. We featured this project back in May, but we’re more than proud to host it again as part of Hit List history and further hope that Danny and Joey will continue to bring even more magic in the months to come.
Last and far from least is a project that turns us once again to actor and martial artist Fabien Garcia (Die Fighting, Drained World, Dragon Ball Z: Light Of Hope) who plays antagonist and fight choreographer to director Anthony Pietromonaco’s newly released and smartly choreographed Star Wars fan film, Dark Legacy, starring Erin Wu as an imprisoned Sith apprentice in training. The shortfilm was exclusively released in the Creators column at Vice.com but we’ve included it as a meaty and supercharged, exciting finale to this week’s Hit List.
The players below are yours forh the taking. You know what to do!…
Delta Goldfish | Action Stunt Film from WAFILMS on Vimeo.
Feel free to check out last week’s entries and endulge to your heart’s content, and sub to the channels for your show of support! Also, if you or someone you know has a project or a reel that deserves an audience or a signal boost of some kind, email us at filmcombatsyndicate@gmail.com and run it by us so we can have a stab at it.
I actually planned on seeing John Wick: Chapter Two this past weekend but ultimately ended up staying in. A few things factored into that with lack of sleep being one of them – as tasking as the Hit List is, I kinda needed the energy.
My weekend started off as a really loaded one. But, again, I was determined to squeeze in this week’s round up of amazing experimental fight action and cinematic stuntwork by some of today’s inspired performers…
That said, it’s been more than a year since I started conceptualizing these articles as Hit Lists and if you’ve been following us long enough, you already know how this goes: Stunt reels! Alas, you get two Vimeo exclusives from stuntwoman Thekla Hutyrova and fight coordinator Matt Berberi, followed by a YouTube-friendly playlist of fellow stunt performers in the form of an extended reel from martial artist and filmmaker Shaun Charney, and stunt reels by Brandyn T. Williams, famed Batman (1989) double Dave Lea, martial artist Nikki Stanley new reels from filmmakers Tony Diaz and actor Dennis Ruel, and a new 2016 reel by the award-winning martial arts performance troupe, Team Sideswipe.
Thekla Hutyrova Action Reel 2015 from Thekla Hutyrova on Vimeo.
MATT BERBERI 2015 FIGHT COORDINATOR REEL from matt berberi on Vimeo.
And now, off to some teaser news of which there are two; the first I found comes straight from the bearings of 233 Film with Ghanan director Antoni-Jordi Owusu for the upcoming short, The Exchange, which has some terrific shots to sell itself to an audience. The second hails from a Film Combat Syndicate team favorite, Lunar Stunts who’ve, for better or worse, prove that it’s neither too early nor late for a zombie movie with the upcoming short, The Highway.
Press play and feel the groove!
Time to get on board with some fight action this week, and as such, have a look at these samplers from Dardrex‘s own Darren Holmquist and Martin Chan, another sampler from Kefi Abrikh and Djibril Newik Chase, the EMC Monkey’s newest – Super Park Fighters, Eric Jacobus’s newest Doom-inspired Go Pro fight with Thomas Tan, actor and stuntman and newly-decorated Karate black belt Chuck Johnson’s latest endeavor with Quiet Flame Stunts in Poster Boys featuring Yasufumi Minowa, Corridor Digital’s Cat Dog Kung Fu, Ronnie Shalvis’s latest Star Wars-inspired freerunning lightsaber short with CBR Stunts and T. Ryan Mooney’s newest spectacular action piece, Tooth For A Tooth.
And lastly, the likely final Super Powered Beatdown of 2015 from the folks over at Bat In The Sun. Darth Maul goes toe-to-toe with your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, featuring respective performances by Dirk Ellis and Power Rangers: Dino Charge co-star Yoshua Sudarso, with fight choreography by Alvin Hsing, and with all votes cast for this latest video, fans can expect a new edit with an alternative ending in January. Enjoy the cosplay debates and the action-packed simulation below!
And there you have it. Subscribe to these channels for all the content you need and be sure to catch any of last week’s entries if you missed them. Moreover, we’re down to the wire for 2015 so if you wanna make Hit List history and have some awesome content you think deserves a spotlight, shoot it over to us at filmcombatsyndicate@gmail.com!
The new video features both actors discussing their experience in training for the new movie, reuniting once more under the tutelage of martial artist, stuntman and fight trainer Noah Fleder. Check it out below, and I dare you to keep a straight face.
Are you feeling lonely? Are you in need of that special someone to help you work off some of that stress? Guess what! There’s an app for that, and actor and independent screenfighting action director Darren Holmquist is here to show you how to use it against fellow actress Jennifer Faust in the new test fight shortfilm, FIGHTR – Ultimate Fighting Phone App.
Be advised however, as curious as minds can be, this particular app doesn’t exist, but chalk another one up for the independent scene delivering another gem for the masses as Holmquist meets his lovely date, face first!
If the names are familiar to you, then you may recall a recent crowdfunder that launched for indie director Frank Hernandez‘s new spirited action revenge drama, Heart. And, in case you are not up to date, Holmquist and Faust are currently attached to the project, with further developments pending as we head into the remaining fifteen days.
In the meantime, you can watch Holmquist and Faust in action in the embed below, and if you’re interested, CLICK HERE to read our coverage of Hernandez’s Heart project.
Independent action film company Dardrex Productions debut its most recent experimental short film called Test Fight: Underground. The video clip illustrates actors Darren Holmquist and C.J. Thoms, illustrating the company’s latest efforts to deviate from its previous observances of Hong Kong-stylized action scenes, and into a newer, more brutal, grounded-in-reality style of fight choreography and stuntwork (otherwise known as the “Dardrex New Style”) to signify Dardrex Productions as a pivotal milestone in evolving the independent action film industry since their video announcement late last year.