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Pyun's 'The Kickboxer' Brandishes A New Title, Cast, Story Details And More!

2015 is going to be a year full of kickboxing cinemafare between two entirely seperate projects, including filmmaker Albert Pyun who has been pretty busy plotting his own return to the Kickboxer fray having previously directed two of the films from the franchise dating back to 1989. The nature of Pyun‘s return has remained in constant development for a while in making whatever changes were required for the project. Now, the director is taking to Facebook to shed some more light on the progress he’s making with the story, the characters and the cast and crew he plans on bringing aboard.

Newly titled, The Kickboxer: City Of Blood, lead actor and martial artist Sasha Mitchell will star in a newly revamped story to portray troubled UN peacekeeper, David Anderson, forced underground through near century-old World War II tunnels to evading Myanmar’s secret police while protecting a young witness to a slate of political murders. Pyun reunites with Mitchell who starred in three of all five Kickboxer movies in which Pyun directed two, along with actress Clare Kramer following her performance in Pyun‘s 2012 flick, Road To Hell, while Hercules actor Kevin Sorbo rejoins with Pyun once more since appearing in the 2010 film, Tales Of An Ancient Empire. Mark Dacascos, who previously starred in helmer Kristine Peterson’s Kickboxer: Redemption (1995) is currently in the running to play the villain. Other casting to be determined includes the announcements of actors Michael Tushaus, Scott Paulin, Norbert Weisser and Dennis Chan who also starred in several of the original Kickboxer movies as Muay Thai master Xian Chow.

Pyun is now working to enlist a crew of familar faces to help formulate the new movie in addition to his director of photography on Cyborg Nemesis and Road To Hell, Mike Su, his composer on Heatseeker and Kickboxer 2 and 4, Tony Riparetti, and the hopeful recruitment of Cyborg editor Rozanne Zingale. Impact Online’s own Mike Leeder will be co-producing the film, which could potentially bring Dacascos aboard for the film having just completed the second feature-length project under Leeder’s Silent Partners banner, Ultimate Justice, due out in 2015 as well. This may also depend on how things will look as Dacascos has also been tied to the forthcoming production of Indonesian action thriller, Garuda 7, and both productions are expected to commense in January which may be cutting it close unless things change.

Pyun is aiming The Kickboxer: City Of Blood, to be his biggest film to date as shooting readies for Guangzhou, China over at ACE Studios at the end of January next month with the hopes of a Cannes screening in the following May. Further updates are still pending for who will fit the other shoes to be worn for this ambitious new reinstallation of thrilling martial arts action. So stay tuned for more information as it comes.

H/T: Albert Pyun

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Updates On The Developments Of GARUDA 7

Updates On The Developments Of GARUDA 7

A recent newsletter from B&E Productions in early April reported talk of the announcement made at a press conference in Jakarta about an Indonesian film production from Lifevolution Pictures to be co-produced by Bey Logan, along with Bagus Arietam who is also directing. “After Hong Kong and Japanese martial arts films, the next Asian action heroes to hit the West were Indonesian,” Logan said at the press conference. “I remember seeing Billy Chong’s ‘Crystal Fist’ and a Barry Prima swordplay epic on VHS. It’s an honour to team with these legends on this new project.”

The film, Garuda 7, is said to have a story and overall look and feel of an action adventure that would combine an “Expendables” theme with “Raid”-style action, featuring a diverse cast with veteran actors such as Willy Dozan (a.k.a. Billy Chong) and Barry Prima, in addition to young, rising action stars. The premise, according to the film’s official Facebook page will involve rescuing the daughter of Barry Prima’s character from a human trafficking organization that likely leads to other plot twists and explosive action along the way. City On Fire, who helped break the story this week, also stipulated this week that the director plans to begin pre-production on the film this September after Logan wraps up production on Lady Bloodsport which is currently set to star an all-female line-up led by Selina Lo and Jet Tranter.

Currently, action stars like Mark Dacascos, Michael Dudikoff, Lorenzo Lamas, Simon Yam and Richard Norton are other names set to be hopefully attached to the project if co-producer Bey Logan can help it. Dacascos, who is slated to appear in the upcoming second season of Mortal Kombat: Legacy has just wrapped up production in The Philippines for a new film tentatively titled Operation: Rogue. Meanwhile, Norton, who is also slated to appear in the upcoming Mad Max reboot, along with Lamas, in addition to Dudikoff who is still up for some form of an American Ninja reboot film, are all current names spoken of in recent reports regarding another “Expendables”-style action adventure film pitched by Don “The Dragon” Wilson called The B-Team.

There seems to be a fascinating pattern here with “Expendables”-style military films, especially now that there are several other films in the works, including Adi Shankar’s latest all female “Expendabelles” project. We’ll see where this goes, so watch this space for more info hopefully in the near future.

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