tacfest 2024

TACFEST 2024: ‘I’ll Crush Y’all’, ‘Shadow Fist 3’, ‘Kigurumi Blade’ And More Splash Big For Spain’s Second-Year Genre Festivities

The International Toledo Action Films Festival & Expo wrapped its goings-on in Illescas last week. The second-annual festival launced on May 15, kicking off a weeklong spell of film fandom and martial arts fanfare with expos, panels and seminars host to topical discussions on industry and the craft, stunts and much more within the first three days. The latter half of TACFEST II saw a plethora of events rolled into one at the Guillermo Plaza Pavilion in Yuncos in Toledo. Expos, training and exhibition segments, mini-cinema and merchandising were all on hand with over a dozen booths on display, including a photo booth where everyone could share their own Dragonz Magazine cover. The weekend also saw more than twenty martial arts seminars held with Grandmasters of Martial Arts such as Sebas Deibe, Paulino Martín, César Alonso, José Torres II (Killer-Ex), and Musical Kata World Champion Jan Sykora from the Czech […]

TACFEST 2024 Brings The Heat Back To Illescas With Loads Of Action And Martial Arts Fanfare In May

Lee B. Golden III

Our own Mike Garcia has been busy previewing some of the stuff that’s ramping for the sophomore edition of the Toledo Action Films Festival And Expo, or TACFEST & EXPO. You can check out his select write-ups by clicking here, while the word is now out for the five-day event kicking off in the Spanish municipality at the Illescas House of Culture on May 15. Action cinema, despite being one of the most watched genres in the world, still does not have the respect it deserves, and has always been undervalued in the most important festivals and awards ceremonies, which is why it makes a year TACFEST was born, where they wanted to pay tribute to the genre that has given us more action heroes to admire than any other. TACFEST & EXPO 2024 hails from Castilla la Mancha Film Association, in collaboration with the Association International of Martial Artists […]

TACFEST 2024 Review: I´LL CRUSH Y´ALL: Crushing as only way to solve the conflict

Mike Garcia

“I’ll crush y’all” is a cinematic hooliganism of the best kind, a story written by the ink of violence starred by a bunch of good-for-nothing thugs driven by greed, vice and peculiar codes of conduct that could only be represented in a violent canvas drawn by blood. The supposed seriousness of the script is splashed by big drops of sarcasm and cinism, giving rein in a visual debauchery that indulges the spectator to being dragged into this exciting exercise of the most enjoyable carefree entertainment. The plot presents a tough old-school action hero (Mario Mayo), tough but kind-hearted. one of those screen heroes whom destiny chooses to be heroes despite their initial reluctance to want to be one. A quiet man seeking for peace away from the nuisance world. Those kind of action cinematic heroes whom troubles seems to be constantly knocking at their door. Mario Mayo brawls his way […]

TACFEST 2024 Review: KIGURUMI BLADE: Brawls, Bullets and Cosplay

Mike Garcia

A mysterious evil organization goes after a junior high school student, luckily for him, he finds the protection of a young mysterious girl who is well trained in the art of violence and hides her identity under a bulletproof kigurumi costume (term used for costumes of animal characters in Japan.) Beneath this a priori simple plot lies a much more complex story that goes evolving until unfold the real motives under the chase of the main characters. A story that takes place in a motley film universe inhabited by a bunch of peculiar characters that are driven by the only way to communicate that they know, the language of violence. Shingo Soejima from a script wrtten by himself alongside Kunihiko Okamoto, directs this intriguing action film filled with violence and brutal fight scenes under the action direction of Akira Ogiwara. Bringing a gripping action story to the screen that make […]

TACFEST 2024 Review: DARK CHILD (Short Film) A brutal display of skill and talent with Ayane shining on the lead

Mike Garcia

Dark Child is a brutal short film of non-stop action in which we follow a young woman who making her way through a path of brutal blows and contusions avoids a group of men to inject her with a mysterious substance. With the very talented Ayane on the the lead, and under the action direction of Shun Yamashita, Dark Child offers a stunning display of talent with a high level of screen fighting skills that has the ability of knocking out the audience with its awesomeness… This amazing short film will be competing for the Quixote awards among many other international productions in the upcoming TOLEDO ACTION FEST and EXPO that will be held in the city of Illescas (Toledo, Spain) from May 15 to 17, 2024.

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TACFEST 2024 Review: RUNNER: Honoring John McClane

Mike Garcia

This modest italian production does not hide its intention of being a rip-off of 1988 action classic “Die Hard”, in fact, in the final credits there´s a mention honoring John McClane. Nonetheless, this intended homage directed by Nicola Barnaba, tries to bring some of its own personality, adding to the formula a metacinema plot that is key to the story. The plot takes place in a hotel, where a girl is trapped while she runs away from the man who just murdered her lover, while at the same time, she tries to clean her name after being blamed by the murder. As a tribute to such a legendary film as “Die Hard”, “Runner” fails on delivering an action-packed product that could become kind of memorable, coming short in the development of a good bunch of charismatic characters that could hook the viewer deeply into the story. At the end, everything […]

TACFEST 2024 Review: WHITE DRAGON (Dragón Blanco) Short film: Hooking trip to a violent underworld

Mike Garcia

White Dragon presents a tale of misfits making their way through a hostile underworld, using as unique toool for survival their immoral way of living, the plot revolves around Salvador, a real estate speculator and low-level drug dealer, leads a group of gangsters using a Chinese restaurant as a cover. The truculent past of one of the members of this small-time gang will endanger his business and their own lives. Rodrigo E. Marini Valsechi and David Santamaría González teamed up on the director´s chair to grip the spectator into a sordid universe frequented by characters of the worst kind, where treachery and a past that could never be left behind could become the easiest road to meet their maker. The short film is virtous on hooking the audience into the story, shocking them with its grity and raw representation of violence, disposing some well elaborated action sequences on the screen […]