THE HIT LIST: November 25, 2019
I had the explicit delight of reviewing a film this weekend called Gold Coast Lounge which opens locally in Ghana in January. That’s really all there was to my weekend except the usual offering of life’s headaches.
malay kim
THE HIT LIST: May 13, 2019
At long last, it’s been another two weeks since then and so it’s time to present the latest finds from around the web for another installment of The Hit List.
STILL EVOLVING, STILL FLUNG: An Interview With Malay Kim
Welp, here we are again! My journey into the lives and aspirations of folks within the online action and independent film community continues, and in somewhat of a timely fashion with the latest release of director Kellie Madison’s newest shortfilm, The Gate. The project is the latest move for its helmer toward a feature film well on the way, and, incidentally, it’s also the latest notch on the belt of success for one of the hardest working people I’ve ever seen perform in independent, often zero-budgeted filmmaking.
EMC Monkeys Presents: LUCKY STRIKE
Imagine, if you will, if you took all or as many ingredients of the average Quentin Tarantino film, and crammed it as much of it as possible into a nifty little online action shortfilm. Ask yourself, how much do you think you could replicate some of that visual filmic magic? Some might imagine it as pretty challenging, but not indie filmmaker and action actor Robert Dill. He’s taking on that formula and applying it to his craft with his fellow members of the EMC Monkeys for their latest love letter to the Kill Bill and Resevoir Dogs helmer in the new shortfilm, Lucky Strike.
Dill, an up-and-coming film professional since around 1999, eventually found himself adding stuntwork to his repetoire, performing for various award shows and dinners with EMC by 2008, all in the course of pursuing a career in film and television. After spending a little more time behind the camera for the past few years, for Dill, a comeback was necessary, which begs the question: Why Tarantino?
“In all his films, Tarantino always has the quirky, sort of silly sense of humor about everything,” he says. “It’s like he and his films never take themselves very seriously at all. Almost to say ‘Yeah, we all know this is bullshit, so lets just make sure we’re both clear on the subject’ [laughs]. I thought that would be really fun to emulate that a bit, by having a serious situation feel almost ridiculous even though it’s clearly very serious, and somehow beautiful at the same time, with music and cinematography and other things.”.
Watching this, I could only imagine how A Band Apart would have interpreted this exact kind of scenario with the same performers. It’s experimental at best, but you can definitely hear that playful seriousness in the overall tone, creativity, and timing of the dialogue, as well as the action and editing in between.
You can catch all eight minutes of this lovely little gem in the embed below, right down to the mid-credit blooper clip. And yes, you want to see the blooper clip.
Well played, Malay…well played.
[UPDATED] EMC Monkeys Presents: A Hybrid Special ID (SPL/Flash Point) Fan Short Tribute To Donnie Yen
Enjoy the video below, as well as the behind-the-scenes footage at the bottom of the page.
Reel Time: MALAY KIM (2014)
Film Combat Syndicate has had the pleasure of hosting some truly stunning work from the folks over at cinematic action performance and choreography team, EMC Monkeys in the past year, and it’s really a small list in comparison to the amount of achievements they have made since their earlier years in activity long before this site existed. A lot of that work includes a list of admirable performances by fellow member Malay Kim, who has brand new reel out which features both old and new projects that are coming online very soon.
The team has left a major mark on the industry for fans online over the last few years, particularly with one of thier most successful videos to date attributed to the hit game, Sleeping Dogs in 2012, in which by an act of otherwise random chance, a segment of choreography became the center of attention upon the recent release of director Isaac Florentine’s latest hit film, Ninja: Shadow Of A Tear. Of course, the comparison was noticeable in similarity, but nonetheless, the team is taking it all in stride, and hopes to spark a meeting of minds one great day with the film’s pivotal action director and rising star in choreography, Tim Man.
Just think of the possibilities, kids.
Kim has a few more videos lined up that will be coming out real soon this year, including two upcoming tributes to the latest Donnie Yen cop thriller, Special ID with fellow actor and Fight Factory performer Michael Lehr, and the classic SNK fighting game, King Of Fighters, as well as an upcoming Power Rangers fan film titled Unmorphed, and Lethal Weapon 6 – a follow up to their 2012 Nerf-weaponized action vid, Lethal Weapon 5.
Feel free to subscribe to EMC Monkeys via their YouTube channel in the embed below, and stay tuned for more exciting info.
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