My weekend was good! Well… not terrible anyway. Atomic Blonde was on my agenda and I stand by my last words in that piece as we now approach a new week with another installment of The Hit List.
As always, a nifty amalgam some of today’s top and talented stunt performers is how we start things and we begin with a major contribution a la Vimeo with Boyka: Undisputed co-star, actor and martial artist Brahim Achabbakhe.
Malin Kirjonen takes the lead this week in our Youtube playlist just beneath with Nathan Barris following, as well as stunt players Daniel Stevens, Hayden Lam, Diandra Stoddard, Darren Holmquist, Mark Miscione, Tien Hoang, Kami Bruder, Maggie MacDonald, Jay Greene, Kyro Wavebourne, Yavuz Topuz, Darren Bailey (click here to view it), and Vlad Rimburg with a fantastic highlight reel showcasing the brutal action of Ali Abbas Zafar’s multi-award winning MMA thriller, Sultan!
Promotional gems come to a head with only one, and it’s a worthy sampling at that with Leif Johnson’s inspired Asian action short, Kowloon Killers. Film Combat Syndicate favorite, the aforementioned Tien Hoang stands front and center, cornered in an Asian marketplace by a gang of masked Triads and an air of treachery that could mean his undoing.
Johnson is taking Kowloon Killers to the Fighting Spirit Film Festival in September with more events soon to follow before an online release. Until then, check out the official teaser trailer below along with a batch of exclusive stills from the short!
Kowloon Killers Trailer from Leif Johnson on Vimeo.
We’re definitely running light this week for The Hit List as that’s all there is on my radar to promote in terms of trailers for projects. Alas, it’s off to the action this week and we begin with a Vimeo exclusive by action actor Spencer Mulligan directing his own latest short, Sabotage, with Chris Romrell and Donny Carrington starring.
Wrapping it all up is a playlist of some of the best of the best in practice and pre-vis fight design and performance and shortfilm excellence starting with a knife fight performed by Ben Van Huis and Kai Ferris, Kevin Tsai and Graham Hooper mixing it up with Jay Kwon behind the lens, Tara Macken bringing some more groundgame with Ellen Hollman, and a late fan fight entry inspired by the memorable Jaka/Mad Dog brawl from The Raid courtesy of Artur Syc and Kacper Borowski from Chaos Stunts in Poland.
Newly unveiled over the weekend is a practice fight with a touch of narrative material in Abducted with Ashley Beck and Cali Nelle, with Vlad Rimburg and Emmanuel Manzanares bringing the pain to their makeshift Gotham with a pair of pre-vis action videos made for the upcoming game release of Batman: The Telltale Series.
Rounding out the playlist and with sheer love and appreciation for Atomic Blonde helmer David Leitch, I bring 2007 shortfilm, Fetch with Daniel Bernhardt at the helm. Front and center is Leitch in the title role as down-and-out P.I. and retrieval expert who isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty and knuckles bloody…
A decade old, and still has it freshness as I’ve shared it before and have no qualms sharing it again. Enjoy!
Sabotage from Stunt Cru on Vimeo.
The Hit List is still ripe with last week’s entries so be sure to follow up and subscribe to all the channels for more content. And, if you or someone you know makes cool and kickass action projects or demo reels of late that are worthy of the Hit List audience, share it with us at filmcombatsyndicate@gmail.com and we’ll be happy to sample it!