THE HIT LIST – August 22, 2016

This week’s installment of the Hit List will definitely be a little light on content. My guess is everyone’s been busy working, which is good for me seeing as if not, I wouldn’t be able to share as much as I often do.

As always, we get things started with a fresh new playlist full of stunt and training reels from today’s talented professionals. Stuntman and Shaolin martial artist Tien Hoang is letting it rip with a terrific weapons demo reel directed by Colin Emerson (Sapphire, Dead End). Rounding it out are stuntwomen Gabriela Rodriguez, Hannah Scott and Lacey Robinson, along with Niko Dalman, LeRoyal Tutt, Megan Hui, Clancy Peterson, Malik Bouabid, Bristol Movement Collection‘s own freerunning and tumbling talent Jonathan Last and French cascadeurs Kevin and Heinrich Laurent.

Gaging some promotional materials for a bit, there are three new items on the table and the first comes courtesy of director Mark J. Blackman whose filmmaking portfolio can be viewed by clicking here. In the meantime, he’s now looking to add to his resume with a stylishly gritty, feral, post-apocalyptic martial arts sci-fi thriller, The Verge, a tale set a century into the future where climate change has thrown the world into a gargantuan tempest. Caught in the middle are three warrior-class women pitted against one-another as they fight their way to the top of a flooding building in a symbolic battle for more than their own survival.

Looking at a press pack for this, the project looks tons of ambitious and boasts a vision worthy of an audience in style, caliber and message overall with respect to issues mankind faces today. But above all else, it  promises some solid action, and I certainly hope this one delivers granted the right people are aboard, but they can’t do it without your help, so feel free to fund their kickstarter and learn more about the project and people involved by visiting the page.

Following that is a brand new crowdfunding campaign for a new webseries that already has a few episodes to it, but is now moving forward with something much more solid. Peep the concept for My Asian Auntie, a simple inception for a kung fu comedy series featuring actor, martial artist and director Joey Min (who sometimes muses about movies for us here at FCSyndicate) in the title role.

Promising a fun blend of silly action and bold comedy that pokes morsels of fun at Asian stereotypes, Min and the gang over at Art School Dropouts need your help to gain over a few production hurdles in order to fully realize the idea. You can learn more about the series by clicking here at the official campaign site where you can also donate, and get some perks while you’re at it.

Last and far from least is a slight rewind back to late last year when I spotted an official teaser trailer for fantasy action shortfilm, Jagon. Produced by Filmakademie Baden-Württembürg and SWR’s own Hannes Hohn and Johannes Kunkel and directed by Murat Eyüt Gonültas, and tells of an old hunter who discovers powerful rosary once owned by a Saracen princess.

The film has since made its way in several shortfilm festivals and events including Germany’s Genrenale Screamer Tour and BEST Independents, Camelot in London and last week’s HollyShorts Los Angeles, and is finally gearing up for a September 3 online premiere. Check out the announcement teaser by way of their fanpage and stay tuned for its release.

Finally, we’re off to the action and I have three cool gems to help keep the pace up, starting with a quick test fight by Dardrex‘s Darren Holmquist and David Graham, and a wicked new Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 3 stunt pre-viz by coordinator Matt Mullins. Following that are Wuji Films’s Wild with Joshua Zacharias and Jason Laroque, David Conk at Wolf Stunts hitting up a different kind of ball game with the new action short, Homerun with Felix Betancourt and Johnny Junyi Gao, and a 3-minute action experiment titled The Grid from Action88 and Eight Ray Studios.

For the finale, there wasn’t anything I could find that was newly released and watchable. However, I did spy a 2014 British action comedy mentioned in my recent interview with French actor and stuntman Alexandre Bailly last week. The subject: Pikey Paul from director Lionel Brugeaud and starring Bailly opposite lead actor Paul Clark in the title role – a cocky, washed up, petty lowlife whose daily irredeemable misgivings come back to him tenfold.

Much of the acting is atrocious and the script is nothing short of offensive, although in fairness it plays well to the silly, over-the-top cartoonishness that permeates our lead character and the events that follow throughout the story. It’s a villain-centric tale of karma where the good guy is purely supplemental to the narrative, and rightly so for a down and dirty fight to the finish, which makes Pikey Paul work as well as it does. Check it out below!

Last week’s Hit List is full of goods to enjoy, so click here and catch up with some of the best there is on the internet. And, if you or someone you know has a genuine, kickass action short, test fight or demo reel you think is worthy of a place in our Hit List, hit us up at filmcombatsyndicate@gmail.com!