Actor and director Leroy Nguyen (Black Scar Blues, Yes Auntie!) continues to ride the momentum of the start of the new year, with the current campaign for his next directorial effort, The Brokenhearted. New stills have been added via his official Instagram which you can also view below, currently totaling a dozen featuring Nguyen along with the rest of the cast.
Loneliness, heartbreak, bitterment – all these and more lend a chilling view into the stoic, brutal mind of the character Leroy Nguyen plays in the new indie gangster drama, Silverback.
The last seventy-two or so hours as of this post have been nothing short of abuzz since the premiere of Art School Dropouts’ Yes Auntie: My Asian Auntie – Season 2.
The last several years have been great in getting to acquaint myself with filmmaker Joey Min and his team at Art School Dropouts. They’ve amassed multiple awards at festivals and continue to garner support from fans and viewers in a field that Min has been hustling in since long before when Team FistyleZ was a thing. Nowadays and with a rousing quintet of talents in collusion with some of the best of the best in the northeast, the team is on deck to finish up and release their first feature film in My Asian Auntie Season 2: Yes Auntie!.
The new millenium was a turning point in the world of martial arts film fandom. Most folks who surf the web and follow the genre like crazy know this and likely know of the immersive talent that has emerged since then, partly including Leroy Nguyen who now brings word of progress for upcoming noir gangster drama, Silverback.
For certain, actor and filmmaker Leroy Nguyen can attest to these and much, having cut his teeth for well over a decade through his own projects, as well as shared ventures with numerous other aspiring film professionals, and with a distinct interest in action and martial arts. Joined by longtime friend and film cohort, Edmond Shum, the two have found a unique working chemistry through their craft under the banner Rising Tiger Films, with such projects as the prolific Do The Damn Thing webseries in association with Jabronie Pictures, as well as festival shortfilm favorites like Baddest, These Dog Days and The Exit Wound.
Independent filmmaking isn’t a hugely smooth process, especially when working on a zero budget. It’s been a lesson well learned for upcoming actor and fight choreo Leroy Nguyen in the years he’s operated online via his indie film banner, Rising Tiger Films – more so following the festival of his latest indie action drama short, Black Scar Blues.
The project is four years in the making with up-and-coming actress Queen Sayat joining Nguyen and Rising Tiger staple Edmond Shum in a story focused two drug runners whose enduring friendship is ultimately tested in the wake of greed, lust and unmitigated ambition. The acting is generally good, but what amplifies it the most is level of intensity drawn from the performances through the script and the intertwining relationship that unfold. I say all this having screened and reviewed the short for myself earlier this year, and I will also add that for a project of this kind, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more layers to explore in this dark and gritty story.
Alas and much to our delight, Film Combat Syndicate can exclusively report that more filming is underway to expand on the narrative and add more scenes to turn Black Scar Blues into a fully-fledged feature. Amid all this, talks have also been in place with North American sales representatives over at Circus Road Films for distribution.
“The film in its current state is about the best I could’ve made it given what I had.” says Nguyen. “I was essentially the only one handling it from 2013 to now, and considering that this has been in production since 2010, that’s a lot of responsibility. That being said, the film is very different from the original concept. Now we have the opportunity to flesh it out even further, and I’m really hoping to tell the story I wanted to tell, and in the way that I wanted to tell it.”
The news comes following its final festival entry two months ago at the Action On Film Festival in Monrovia, California and a deal is not in place as of yet while filming resumes. At any rate, after about a year of running through festivals with a sleeve of laurels to its credit, it’s high time Rising Tiger Films gained some headway with its first feature film, marking another foray into feature film territory for a small film company cultivated in online martial arts fandom.
Nguyen and select members of his group will be attending the Urban Action Showcase & Expo in New York City on the weekend of November 7 to host some more of their work, and with any luck, I’ll be there to meet them later in the evening to get some further insight.
Stay tuned for more info!
It’s Monday, and that means another fully loaded Hit List has arrived with loads of stunts and action. This week has a few late entries that I’ve been otherwise inspired to share, and I think you all will enjoy them in some capacity.
Of course, we’re starting this off with a playlist that’s nice and light, graced with stunt and martial arts reels. Fabio Santos kicks things off in fiery fashion next to Jason Wingham, “Kid Haru” himself – Devin White, early 2015 demo reel footage from Team Raffaelli, industry fight choreographer, actor and stuntman Tim Man and the latest awesome tricking reel from Team Emig’s own Mackensi Emory (viewable only here).
Up next are a handful of trailers, a few of which are for foreign language projects on the way, and the first comes four years in the making from filmmaking duo David Vergne and Renaud Guin. Detour is the name of the short which focuses on three jewel burglars who discover a woman brutally beaten, and find themselves taking on a darker force of evil, and the short is currently in post production.
The second trailer hails all the way from Jose Manuel at North Compass, a familiar face I’ve already written about here at Film Combat Syndicate. His next potential webseries, Uncompromised, takes our hero on a quest to avenge his own death with symbolic enemies in the form of his own personal flaws. It’s deep, deep stuff, although I’m certain the project will put all the pieces together when released.
Both projects have trailers below, including Detour which also comes with some cool character promo art. The other trailers include Rising Tiger Films’s new action drama short, These Dog Days, and SG Action’s long-awaited sci-fi time-travel gig, The Mantis!
DETOUR [2015] Official Release from Renaud Guin on Vimeo.
View post on imgur.com
Now we get to the fighting, and as always, there’s plenty of it in the following playlist. Star Wars is the way to here as we set off wity two new videos, one from Noah Fleder‘s Force Storm Entertainment, and Logan Cross’s own short, The Force. Other fights include Tripp Pickell’s latest test choreo sampler with cohort Shannan Leigh Yancsurak, Allie Marrie’s kickass performance in Faux Fighting’s latest “Showdown” serial addition, A Better Workout, Dardrex Productions’s action comedy, Snatch And Grapple, Cinematic Fight Studio’s latest client-ordered project, The Sting, and independent action director Bryan Sloyer’s newest ode to Kurt Wimmer, Equilibrium: Gentlemen’s Game!
Moving on to some longer-form shorts nearing the end of this week’s Hit List, actor, dancer and filmmaker Jordan Cann released this newest drama, My Brother’s Keeper, last week. It’s the story of a friendship broken over a girl, and a rivalry that unfolds between three crews with a surprising twist at the end. Cann himself takes primarily on dance and so there’s plenty of it here as well as a dash of fight choreography for good measure. Take a look!
And finally, we cap things off in award-winning fashion. Australian actor, writer and director David No is still making the rounds these days with his latest short, Battle Of Wills, hitting the festivals this Fall. In the meantime, it was in a private message on social media he shared his 2012 period sword drama, Forged, the story of an impetuous martial arts student who reflects on his ill-fated upbringing with his master on the night of their death duel. The project won a great share of awards throughout the world, including several festivals in the U.S. a few years ago during its run, and you can see them for yourself at the official fan page.
For now, enjoy Forged (special thanks to David for sending this one over!)
Of course, coming from the folks over at Bat In The Sun, we’re bound sooner or later to find out how their next Superpower Beatdown will turn out. Their latest still is up and clearly this one looks to be a real Fall berzerker!…
Tune in to last week’s Hit List and catch up on all you may have missed, and be sure to subscribe to the channels listed. More importantly though, if you’re a filmmaker and you wish have your stunt reels or action shorts featured in a Hit List, shoot us an email at filmcombatsyndicate@gmail.com
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 action projects, including Dark Samurai and Echoes Of A Ronin!
David Sakurai Way of the Sword from サクライ on Vimeo.
Now onto more web content with some more specials, and if you were watching the last reel carefully, you may have recognized Andy Le who can also be seen among his principle team members at Martial Club in a new video up and running by Just Kidding Films where they learn all the ins and outs of Tricking. And if you know Just Kidding Films, you know your face is going to hurt plenty by the end. Enjoy in all it’s delightful laughs!
I seldom spot fan videos, although when I do, quite a handful of them present just the right amount of flair attributed to the respective works they acknowledge. It’s a case in no way dissimilar in actress and stuntwoman PeiPei Alena Yuan‘s latest love letter to martial arts action star Donnie Yen by way of the opening B-Boy sequence in Yuen Woo Ping’s 1995 Hong Kong action comedy, Mismatched Couples. Yuan also happens to be a dancer, and her credentials notwithstanding (i.e. Step Up 3D, Battle B-Boy), her talent speaks for itself. Watch and leasrn!
Now let’s get into some more action-oriented material with a nifty handful of trailers – one including some updated and rather crazy cool poster art as of late.
Aside from making other videos, Rising Tiger Films’s latest, Black Scar Blues, has clearly been a more concentrated effort at something larger in scale. The film is directed by Leroy Nguyen who stars along with Edmund Shum and Queen Sayat, and focuses on two drug traffickers whose bond of friendship is slowly eroded through a series of events when personal ambition, lust and greed get in the way.
Nguyen will be presenting the film later this year at the Urban Action Showcase and Expo in New York City for the last of its year-long festival run boasting a slew of laurels and accolades well-earned, including as recently as the past two weekends in California at An Anti-Hero Production Genre Film Festival and The L.A. Neo Noir Film And Script Festival. Hopefully by then, the short will be released on YouTube unless it acquires a decent on-demand or purchase platform beforehand. In the meantime, it’s got a fresh new trailer now running online with an updated poster, and once more, it has a quote. By me! And you’re welcome.
We also have a new behind-the-scenes featurette with Nguyen explaining the four year-long process in working up to the high creative plateau presented for the film’s final fight. Having seen it for myself, I have to say it really does deliver the desired effect.
Other trailers just beneath include the second promo for Dance Nocturnal creative Jyo Carolino’s new action short, I Am Spartan, Tokyo-based action actor Chuck Johnson’s upcoming surreal action comedy short, Fists Of Absinthe, and 3 Strands Of Rope Productions’s Assassin/Darkside, sequelizing actor Calvert David Miles’s 2014 awarded short, Assassin: Origins.
New short action vids are also circulating the web this week, and kicking this next leg off on the Hit List is League Of Legends themed short, Udyr’s School Of Kung Fu, initially released back in May from Art School Dropouts and Fighting Panda Productions. Actor and fight choreographer Joey Min leads this one and its one adding to his resume of years of awesome action shorts and films, which makes it all the more awesome and honoring that he’s now a part time contributor to Film Combat Syndicate to provide his perspective of action on film from time to time.
Check it out below as well as other new action projects this week, including Narayana Cabral’s Spy Vs. Spy with Angela Bend and Danielle Stahl, the long-awaited release, Grave Error featuring Darren Holmquist and the one and only Eric Jacobus, and…well, probably the sickest Mortal Kombat fan short you’ll ever see online..ever. And if you know RackaRacka, you know this ain’t gonna no PG-13 shit. So consider yourself forewarned!
Finally, a few new action shorts have also been unveiled this week in slightly longer duration. Azi Rahman’s cerebral action thriller, Drake is now online starring Cengiz Dervis in the role of a man trapped in his own mind amid spiritual battle with inner-demonic forces. The action is largely fueled by the music for a more dramatic affect so don’t expect any foley effects as the stuntwork is solely visual.
And last but not least, gladly continuing the vision of R-rated superhero fanfare with brutal and gory action sequences is the latest sequel offering from Workhorse Pictures, Storms Of Carnage: The Black Panther Unleashed Part 2. Actor and director D.A. Jackson reprises his role once more opposite K. Jackson in a story of espionage, betrayal and the moral paradox that arises when battling evil, ultimately pitting the Black Panther against opponents on both sides of the spectrum, humans and mutants alike.
Fans familiar with the source material may either love or hate this one depending on the viewer as these things normally tend to be slightly more controversial than intended (see Adi Shankar’s Power/Rangers). For what it’s worth though, this one has quite the admirable traits for something truly worth the enjoyment as it’s full of special effects, explosive action and dramatic intensity to accomodate the epic final fight between our embattled couple.
Twenty minutes and counting, folks. Press play and enjoy!
There is at least another short that I haven’t gotten around to yet as it’s forty minutes long and dated only by about few years, but I will share that one next week. For now though, if you have time to kill then last week’s Hit List may be worth your remaining minutes at the moment. Above all else however, do subscribe to the channels above, and if you or someone you know makes awesome, QUALITY action and stunt reels, films and shorts like these, send them to us at filmcombatsyndicate@gmail.com!
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