It wasn’t long after I woke up this morning I noticed my notifications were flooded mostly with alerts of Mikko Löppönen‘s newest short, Spirit Hunters. The film won awards at the Fighting Spirit Film Festival in London and at the Urban Action Showcase late last year and is now online for everyone to endulge.
Leave it to Finnish filmmaker Mikko Löppönen to put some fire under my fingertips and get a post going for his latest creative offering, Star Snatchers. Löppönen directed the project at a location that was still available to him when another project before that was cancelled, and with the casting of actress Jessica Wolff to lead the charge comes another promising feat from the same duo that brought Eliza to life seven years ago in short film form…
Jay Kwon (off-screen: Kiera O’Connor) in “Social Distancing”
It’s right about that time again with another two weeks gone, and another Hit List installment jam-packed with stunt professional and indie-action how-do-you-do’s!
It’s Sunday as I’m writing all of this and operating on only four hours of sleep as we speak as I’ve put together this Hit List – I totally blame John Wick for that… Good times!
Their latest pairing now awaits the festival circulation of The Cold Dark, Löppönen’s latest Finnish survival Western thriller tale stretching nineteen minutes. That’s nineteen minutes of chilling suspense and character development followed by a brutal second half in which our heroine is forced to fight for her life – something I’m always keen on with Wolff on screen with projects like The Finnisher and Löppönen’s blood-gushing action-packed short proof, Eliza, the latter over which he and I chatted and sequel-hyped like a couple of fangirls a few months ago. Fun times!
Starring are Terrell Southwind Bullock and Vanessa Bontea shepherding the villain end of things opposite Raymond Blong with Soria presenting the fight action with Luis Orlando Candelario. Samuel is rejoined by fellow film cohort Robert Jefferson in penning the narrative with Eng Andy, Alan Goldberg, Oso Tayari Casel and Dr. Mark Wiley serving as executive producers.
View post on imgur.com
EXCLUSIVE: Having amply proven himself to the masses with his breakout Finnish superhero thriller, Rendel, director Jesse Haaja is now poised to move forward this Spring for ambitious action horror proof-of-concept Furrow. Haaja took to social media on Monday to break the news regarding the series/feature film hopeful, thus signaling the latest update since development began a year-and-a-half ago.
Described as a cross between Ash Vs. Evil Dead and the sprawling Resident Evil film franchise of late, Furrow sees actress and musician Jessica Wolff in the role of Laura, a young farm girl who accidentally releases unspeakable evil lurking in the swamps and is forced to fend off an entire army of swamp-zombies (or Swombies). Several core members from Rendel are also joining the project, including actors Rami Rusinen and Renne Korppila, and director of photography Tero Saikkonen.
The project has been on hold for a few months now but is ready to go with Haaja shepherding a new rewrite with Petra Forsten who wrote Jussi Hiltunen’s 2014 shortfilm drama, The Legacy. Furrow also hails a reunion of only the best kind with Mikko Lopponen dealing in on the action and stuntwork after catching netizens off guard with the blood-drenched revenge action thriller proof-of-concept, Eliza, in which Wolff also starred a few years ago.
Finish farms, swamps and zombie killing action led by a badass female lead all to the tune of regional Finnish music known as Humppa are just a portion of what Haaja promises. For that matter, we can also share some samples of the conceptual artwork he’s working on with Jarkko Vanhalakka which you can view in the imgur album below.
FURROW: POC Artwork
The second pic reveals Film Combat Syndicate favorite, actress and filmmaker Yadi Nieves, in the first of a few teaser images now viral for an upcoming project from Distinctive Light Entertainment.
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Talk about down to the wire… this Hit List article was almost a no-show today as I was getting other things done in the process. Thankfully it IS here, and as alway, it’s choc-filled with goods from the web. Before I begin though, if you missed the trailer for the upcoming short, Temple, then please take a look at it. It’s poised for presentation to hopeful backers of a feature-length expansion and you only need to see the teaser once to be convinced why it deserves your attention and that of sales’ agents…
As for the Hit List, well…let’s get things started in here with a small grouping of stunt reels from folks like stuntwomen Janine Parkinson and Eileen Weisinger, and others from Omid Zader, Ogiwara Satoru, Johann Ofner, Sergei Dmitriev, John Sharpe, Jack Hansen and a fresh new, and Kombatastic reel from LBP Stunts Chicago!
As far as teasers and trailers go, there are a few more worth highlighting here, one from the Asians On Film YouTube channel for a new webseries titled Gun Girl from Asian Cinema Entertainment and In Yo Face Films featuring femme fatale character, “Diona Bran”, played by actress Rebecca Grant. Gorby Shih directs and it looks like it will premiere some time in July but I advise following the channel for more info just in case. The trailer below that is for a new shortfilm from the growing workload of the folks over at Fight Factory Stunt Team titled Deliver(ed) with Vaughndio Forbes and Oscar Leiva among its cast.
And now, we get fighting, and the first of our action finale in this chapter of our Hit List begins with Mathew Lorenceau‘s most recent working of the lends for a skeletal pre-viz lightsaber battle concept. The second is a good old-fashioned test fight to initiate performer Daniel Sim into the ranks with Leroy Nguyen over at Rising Tiger Films; both starred in Nguyen’s recently-celebrated short, Black Scar Blues which is still making the festival rounds so feel free to check out their channel for more info as well. Beneath that is the latest video from the fellas over at Beat Down Boogie titled Kung Fu Avengers, released days beforehand in celebration of the weekend U.S. premiere of Avengers: Age Of Ultron, while the other three come from Mikko Lopponen, Germany-based Noobtown Monkeys and Aracade Killers Cape Town, respectively, with Samurait Kalassatamassa, Girlfriend VS Boyfriend, and Mission Staircase.
And to finish, some slightly longer content, beginning with the usual comedic action styling of Fernando Jay Huerto in Tim And Michael Go To Canada, performing with Anthony Noceda, DL MacDonald and Alex Chung among others. The remaining two include a fresh new episode from the darkly-lit, comprehensive martial arts webseries drama, The Way: Fighters Twitch, and Joshua Zacharias’s latest Donnie Yen-flavored action short, Deception!
But before I go though…
The ‘Apocalypse’ is NEAR, so CLICK HERE to catch up!
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