THE HIT LIST – April 18, 2016
This week’s installation of The Hit List presents some great pieces to share, and without a doubt I will be resurrecting another lovely piece of shortfilm worth viewing for those not in the know.
Right now and as the script usually goes, we kick the festivities off with a playlist full of entertaining reels full of stunts and action by some of today’s talented performers. Actor and stuntman Eric Jacobus starts it off with a continuation of his epic journey through Katsuhiro Harada’s Tekken gameverse with a movelist attributed to the Dark Talon of Death himself, Raven. Following that is a reel from actress Jessica Wolff who has been on my radar for the last few years having worked with indie filmmaking familiars like Fernando Jay Huerto of Jabronie Pictures, and Mikko Löppönen whom I had the pleasure of helping promote his 2015 shortfilm, Eliza. Aside from being a recording artist, I thoroughly enjoy watching Wolff at work when it comes to action on film seeing how she clearly has a knack for it. She’s a great actress and screenfighter, and her new reel shows the goods.
The rest of the playlist rounds things out with new stunt reels by Bronson Cameron, T. Ryan Mooney, Robert Steven Brown, Kefi Abrikh, and Matthew Lorenceau.
Moving onto some promotional bits this week, our first update here presents a poster for a new action sci-fi project now underway titled Scar from director Joséphine Jenneau. You can learn more about it at the project’s official Facebook page while keeping in mind that its action director is none other than Godefroy Ryckewaert who himself has yet to disappoint when it comes to creating some of the most fantastic action sequences ever put on camera. Check out the poster below and feel free to follow the Facebook page for more info.
The second update in this segment brings us a trailer in lieu of forthcoming festivities headlining Etheria Film Night on June 11 at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, California. The event attributes itself to some of today’s most talented women both in front of, and behind the lens, including actress Toy Lei who plays a deadly contract killer in her newest award-winning shortfilm, Boxer. Check out the trailer and stills below as well as the line-up at the official Etheria website!
Third in line comes from the team behind the new pitch video for the inspired webseries, After War, which centers on a former agent on a mission to uncover a nefarious conspiracy that could lead to World War three. The video itself is pretty astounding with a riveting parkour chase that sets the tone nicely for the hype this project strives toward, and on the brink of its forthcoming funding attempt through the upcoming Storyhive.com contest where voting commences today.
Check out the pitch video below and subscribe to the project on Facebook!
Time to cap it off with some great new action shorts this week, and the first one I’m presenting is a great little 2014 piece by filmmaker James Lee who I had the opportunity to chat with about his career. The project in question is called Second Life starring Charlene Meng and Michael Chin as two different people whose situations find themselves ultimately linked in the wake of a mysterious conspiracy forcing them to fight for their survival. I shared the short film on my blog then and I’m sharing it again here as it’s one of many examples of the kinds of shortfilms that deserve virility in bringing talented directors like Lee to the forefront more, and the talent on hand. Much of the acting is initially stiff, but the formula for quality action is executed with great appeal here.
And finally, we have a playlist with five new gems now making the rounds this week, and first up are two quick fight shorts the first staged in a garage with performers Christopher Troy and filmmaker Leo Kei Angelos, and a second by filmmaker Alex Chung over at Eclipse Stunts in a pretty unique arm-wrestling contest with fellow stuntie, Thomas Lorber. Following that is a hilarious new bit from Turtle Wave featuring the Nappy Ninja himself, MMA fighter Piankhi Zimmerman who just wants to do a fight scene…while all co-star Alex Au wants to do is get his line right during the post-credit bloopers. Fun stuff.
Rounding it all off is probably the best nerdfight you’ll see all week, courtesy of Wong Fu Productions with the good company of Noah Fleder and Yoshua Sudarso in the ultimate battle as two opposing Star Wars 7 auditonees in The First Asian Jedi, and a fine seven-minute piece from Reel Deal Action’s own Tanay Genco Ulgen with the riveting new action-packed rescue thriller, Repercussion, starring Taylor Tai, Marshall Bingham, Cassandra Ebner and Ieisha Auyeung.
That does it for this week’s installment, so subscribe to these portals and feel free to sift through last week’s entries in case you missed them. And, if you or someone you know is an amazing stunt performer with a fantastic action reel, a project that needs promoting or a full-on badass action short you feel deserves a place in the weekly Hit List? If so, hit us up at filmcombatsyndicate@gmail.com!
Native New Yorker. Lover of all things pizza, chocolate, pets, and good friends. Karaoke hero. Left of center. Survivor. Fond supporter of cult, obscure and independent cinema - especially fond of Asian movies and global action cinema. Author of the bi-weekly Hit List. Founder and editor of Film Combat Syndicate. Still, very much, only human.
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