joey min

HIT LIST HEAD'S UP: New Stills Unleash The Kung Fu Fury Of Joey Min's MY ASIAN AUNTIE

Not all young performers can pull off the look of an elderly character, and that fact can easily be attributed to actor and filmmaker Joey Min who, razors be damned with that stubborn beard of his, still dares to have a little fun in life with ideas. Such is the case for My Asian Auntie, the latest webseries from the folks over New Jersey-based indie banner Art School Dropouts. Thursday will mark the premiere of the new kung fu comedy series following a few earlier short videos exploring the concept. I had the opportunity to screen all seven parts of this series for myself and it’s a well-worthy labor of love to watch and enjoy from start to finish with Min starring in the title role. Also leading the story is actress Stephanie Pham whose own knack for screenfighting has sharpened quite a bit since making her debut earlier this […]

THE HIT LIST – August 15, 2016

Lee B. Golden III

Well, my weekend was another work weekend. Apart from that I just played it low key and tuned into some more anime and more Hit List content, and I didn’t think I would find a lot to load for the second playlist. As you’ll see, I found plenty to share amid all you can now enjoy in this week’s installment, including a new set of stunt and action demo reels Joseph Ray Santos, Erika Keck, Jon Miguel, Monica Lopez Aleman, Paul Drechsler, Ben Van Huis, Michaela McAllister, Sean Kohnke, Darren Holmquist and Gibb Diaz Ng Yu. Rounding it out is a spiritual tribute to the one and only Jean-Claude Van Damme from filmmaker and well known independent action extraordinaire, Vlad Rimburg. Highlights from many of his earlier hits such as Cyborg, Kickboxer, Double Impact, Lionheart, Hard Target and Timecop are all included with an opening theme central to the exposition […]

HIT LIST HEADS-UP: Watch The Trailer For Kiyun Sung’s Award-Winning Short, THE DESTINED KING

Lee B. Golden III

Following independent action will take you in a direction ripe with tons of treats, and even the very people behind them. I say this having just reunited over the weekend with filmmaker and action choreographer Joey Min who has been writing at Film Combat Syndicate off-and-on this year, and even contributing a review for this year’s Well Go USA release, Park Heung-Sik’s Memories Of The Sword, which I think is quite fortuitous in the wake of his most recent festival acclaim, The Destined King. The film hails from Baek Ho Productions from producer and filmmaker Kiyun Sung and is the first Korean fusion-historical short film shot entirely in the U.S., and whatever the case may be, The Destined King had a great fight director on its hands to add to its stunning story and backdrop. It’s got intertwining drama, romance and tragedy with a scope clearly geared for fans ardent […]

THE HIT LIST – October 26, 2015

Lee B. Golden III

This weekend was another rough one… safe to say I need two of me. Nevertheless, I’m committed to the Hit List this week and have delivered the goods, the high falls, the hard-hitters and all! Right now, we kick things off like we always do, and that’s with the stunt players and demo reels of their own. Watch the latest from Alexandre Gay, Jennifer Li, Sam Slater, Pablo Verdejo, Kadia Saraf, Jesse Haus, Alessandro Romeo, Felix Quinton, Moe Alafrangy and Taz Garcia, as well as an illustrious Darth Maul-inspired lightsaber demo conjured by actor and martial artist Aaron Gassor. Up next, as always, we have a small list of test fights that I found worth sharing. The first comes courtesy of filmmaker Bryan Sloyer who dazzled us earlier this year with an amazing action short called The Keeper. He’s got a new BTS video for that project you can view […]

THE HIT LIST – October 19, 2015

Lee B. Golden III

Time to get the ball rolling this week for a brand new Hit List, one with ample music, energy and most importantly, some of the best action ever shot on film. This week is a little light, but a guaranteed crowdpleaser nonetheless… So sit back and relax, and keep the play button handy. As always, we’re kicking things off with a nifty playlist of cool stunt and training reels from some of todays hardworking stuntmen and coordinators. Former adult entertainer Celine Tran sets the tone properly after bursting into 2015 in solid action actress fashion, now with a reel this season courtesy of Vimeo. Following beneath is a playlist host to reels by Yokoyama Kazuhiro, Simu Lim, Kelly Phelan, David Le, Eugene Bonislavsky, Adam Gomez, and Team Bokator – the people behind Jimmy Henderson’s latest Cambodian vigilante actioner, Hanuman, and the latest training and choreography extension of German action auteur, […]

THE HIT LIST – August 17, 2015

Lee B. Golden III

Well, Monday night has arrived and I pretty much consider myself well-rested seeing as how I ended up back in blogger-mode on Sunday night. Some days you burn out, and on others you just start clicking…it’s funny, really. Anyway, with our return to the start of a new week, the Hit List is back just as well, lending nods to a meaty handful of stunt professionals every week in attribution to their hard work shown in reels and shortfilms alike. Alas, the new stunt reel playlist for the week is now up and running with reels by Donovan Sheehan, Boris Martinez, Marco Pancrazi, an awesome action reel by Raze co-star Allene Quincy, Jacob Sebastian Malm‘s latest reel featuring his Turandot stunt team from the summer in an illuminous new fire showreel, and actor David Sakurai in a new Vimeo-exclusive action reel of his own assembled from several of his recent […]

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Support THE FORGOTTEN KINGDOM On Indiegogo And Help Joey Min Defeat An Army Of Deadly LARPers!

Lee B. Golden III

I’ve actually written about independent filmmaker, actor and martial artist Joey Min a few times. He’s been around nearly as long as any of the online content creators and stunt professionals I’ve enthused about in the last ten years and he’s definitely one of the most talented people I’ve seen on both ends of the camera, and having finally met him late last year certainly made for a memorable evening among friends in 2014. Alas, you can find out more about who he is through a simple Google search or a few runs on YouTube with shortfilm credits such as Fernando Jay Huerto’s Fighter’s High, Xing Yi Quan: Techniques And Applications with Keith Min, Mark Cheng’s Operation: Red Retrieval, Eric Lim’s Tokusatsu short, Secondary Education, and Bueno’s boundless OTT Tokusatsu action comedy feature, Gun Caliber to name a few. In the meantime, Min wants to hone in something very special […]

EXPLODING HEADS, TWONKERS AND ONE-LINERS: A Night Of Drinking With New Friends

Lee B. Golden III

From L to R: Joey Min, Sunny Smith, Jon Truei, Jon Cross, Eoin Friel, Edward Friel, and myself. Once again, I’m dead tired after a night of drinking, singing and shitloads of banter with good people, and I haven’t had a wink of sleep either at that. Nonetheless, I’m compelled to write briefly about my evening on Friday, November 7, 2014; I could have went to see Why Don’t You Play In Hell? by Sono Sion, but to be honest though, I really wasn’t up for another solo trip to the movies, plus the people I was with had plans of their own while only in town for a limited time, and so Friday night was played a little loosely. Thankfully, nobody got displaced, and for the most part, we all clicked. This weekend, writer and journalist Eoin Friel of The Action Elite had flown in from Canada to attend […]

GUN CALIBER Gets An Online Re-Release This August!

Lee B. Golden III

Independent filmmaker and actor Bueno‘s latest feature-length, uber-violent, adult-oriented contribution to Tokusatsu lore, Gun Caliber, is still a work in progress as it is currently adding a fresh new soundtrack, among other things, for its forthcoming DVD and hopeful Blu-Ray release. However, the film still carries a substantive weight of positive feedback from critics and fans of Japanese superhero suit action following the film’s limited “bootleg” release of the film online back in April via the official YouTube channel. Well, get ready for another round! The film will be making its encore presentation of the film which will kick off the week of August 15, featuring Bueno once again as the titular gun-toting, shamelessly perverted, alcohol-addicted, anti-hero as he chews his way through evil two-guns at a time, while struggling to blend in a society where suit heroes are accosted and unappreciated. Executive produced by Paul Sullivan, the film is […]

Growing Pains Pack A Punch In The New Indiegogo Promo For Webseries, FIGHTER'S HIGH

Lee B. Golden III

Nearly ten years in the making, independent filmmaker Chris Ryons is about to apply a fresh new vision to a webseries concept he has been developing since his his early years in film. That series earned its first application by 2007 in the form of Fighter’s High, an action comedy project that centers on a generation of teenagers that thrive in martial arts as a preamble to entering high school. The series is taking a different creative direction since 2007, but its origins come collectively on behalf of Ryons‘s influences over the years, namely his 20-year long love for martial arts in all its aspects, filmmakers like Chang Cheh and Yudai Yamaguchi, and the kung fu and Tokusatsu genres, and tournament fighting video games in general. “I always kicked around this joke about the original Power Rangers and how it seemed being a martial artist was a pre-requisite to get […]

Weekend Review: GUN CALIBER (2014)

Lee B. Golden III

SYNOPSIS: In 2014, get ready to shoot evil in the dick. Soma Kusanagi may be your average miserable Smartball Parlor employee in Tokyo’s Old Town, but when evil rears its ugly ass on the Japanese Metropolis, he transforms into the Gunslinging Superhero, Gun Caliber and fights against the evil organization known as “Skulldier”. A group hell-bent on taking over Japan right after they finish their lunch break. REVIEW: Normally when watching anything Tokusatsu-related, I usually expect it to be a family-oriented type of genre as anyone would. You see popular TV shows like Kamen Rider and Power Rangers and you already know that you are not going to see anything more than kid-friendly, fun and spectacular costume entertainment. However, this is not television, and actor and independent filmmaker Bueno is here to remind you of exactly that, so by all means, feel free to remove the kids from the room. […]

Internal Chinese Kung Fu Delivers Artful External Brutality In The New Shortfilm, XING YI QUAN: APPLICATIONS AND TECHNIQUES

Lee B. Golden III

It was back in February in the early existence of Film Combat Syndicate that I got to share a dialogue with Hollywood stuntman, action performer and martial artist, Keith Min. A prominent member of LBP Stunts Chicago, much of Min‘s energy in martial arts is spent observing the core, internal philosophies of his teachings as an instructor in Chicago, trained in a variety of disciplines ranging from Baguazhang and Tai Chi, to his preferred style, Xing Yi, which can now be viewed in its cinematic aesthetic in the new kung fu action shortfilm, Xing Yi Quan: Techniques And Applications. As I interpreted before in my informative and poignant discussion with Min back in February, Min‘s internal principles are what embody his vision to be able to implement his training with students in a simple but effective, and enjoyable manner to students of all types and sizes. Min expanded on the […]

Oldie/Goodie Review – Fight Clip: NO WAY OUT (2009)

Lee B. Golden III

I recently had the chance to briefly speak to Joey Min, and Jon Truei, who, aside from their current careers, are also oft-partners in independent action filmmaking. Earlier this month, Min uploaded a fight scene clipped from a previously unfinished project with martial arts stunt performer, David Crosby, called No Way Out. The clip was originally shot in 2008 and uploaded a year later and features some truly fast paced, violent Hong Kong stylized choreography set in open field, featuring swordplay, knife fighting, and ultimately, feats of Wing Chun and Tae Kwon Do, from Joey and David, respectively. The scene also features an intense soundtrack adding a sense of underlying drama to a clip that looks like its part of a much longer story. And in my opinion, it should have been. Joey is a 20-year practitioner of Shaolin Kung Fu, along with some training in Hyakkuken and Kyokushin Karate. […]