Christmas is approaching and hopefully you all have your gifts and stocking stuffers ready. With any luck, this could mean more of what is listed below from the creators and performers in today’s installment of The Hit List!
Kicking things off with something a bit more holiday-spirited is Italian stuntteam Flying Without Fear and their new short, Stunta Clause: Una Visita Inaspettata (Stunt Claus: An Unexpected Visit). Stuntman Daniele Balconi takes the lead once more as the not-so-big guy in red as he’s forced into another annual epic battle. Good thing he’s in shape, because this creature looks pissed!
This week, I have at least two reels that I feel are worth adding to the Hit List, featuring stuntmen and action actors Vonzell Carter and Eric Jacobus. Carter is best known for his collaborative efforts for the last several years with the folks over at Thousand Pounds Action Company, performing and even directing much of their action-packed projects. He’s currently partaking in some projects he can’t talk about publicly, but its safe to say he’s on his way up.
Of course, the same can also be said for Jacobus, founder of The Stunt People and a tentpole of the martial arts film community whose new reel is host to a number of accomplishments, including Mortal Kombat Legacy 2 and horror anthology, The ABC’s Of Death 2, as well as upcoming shorts like Rope-A-Dope 2 and his latest performance in the new short, Sensitive 70’s Turtleneck Tough Guys from director Jose Montesinos.
Commence endulging!
Here, we have another test fight short project from the folks over at Cinematic Fight Studio titled Seven Seven. The short was constructed as one of the deals included by the studio for its clients, including Olie Brown who has already been training with studio founders Lang Yip and Adam Lee, in addition to performing in a few projects as well. Brown is joined by Matt Healey this week, and you can check them both out below.
Having followed aspiring action auteur Eric Nguyen and his work over at Lunar Stunts Action Cinema, I can honestly say that what I love most about his projects is the amount of contemplation and focus he puts in developing the characters he writes. He’s only gotten sharper in the years since and he’s back to prove that once more before the new year with this week’s shortfilm, El Guerrero (The Warrior), the story of a bounty hunter whose own ego will serve as litmus test when he goes toe-to-toe with an enigmatic tattooed killer in the desert.
Lunar Stunts regulars Mickey Arce and Irvin Nguyen star, and hopefully you’ve already taken notice of this fine group as it continues to make strides to showcase their talents in filmmkaing. They’re seriously good at what they do, and I hope their respective careers and visions take them to higher plateaus in 2015.
Up next is a commercial recently unveiled commercial produced for a massage chair company called Kawaii. The commercial was directed by up-and-coming filmmaker Ken Dinh whose Dallas-based group, P & K Company Productions, has been operating for close to a year now while working to set things in motion for some feature-length projects. Their most recent efforts can be seen in the new horror thriller, True God, for which a trailer has been going viral for about a year now, although the creamy center of their modus operandi leans more toward martial arts action, so with any luck, we will see some more progress from Dinh and his team in the next two weeks. In the meantime, Stairway To Heaven is the name of the theme for Dinh’s contribution to Kawaii, starring lead actor and martial arts expert, Peter Tham with fight choreography by Vu Thach. Take a look!
The next video comes from stuntman Dylan Hintz over at DC Stunt Coalition with fellow performer John Soares. The two convened over at Soares’s location in Nashville, Tennessee following Hintz’s 16-hour bus ride, and while its one of the first test fights Hintz has ever done, its one he’s considerably proud of. And rightfully so, with some great hand-to-hand and weapons choreography, and some noteworthy camerawork to boot.
There’s a huge backstory Hintz will have available on his own blog which should appear in the description of the video following this write up. At any rate, this video was pretty entertaining!
Martial Club is probably one of the most prolific sports groups out there in the martial arts community. Martial artist member Andy Le who recently sat down with the folks over at Just Kidding Films to chat a bit about his roots and his future with the team, in addition to other current and developing plans. Of course, film is also a part of the plan, as per the latest trailer for the new Martial Club shortfilm, The Greatest Adversary, a story that puts Le‘s character on a warrior’s journey leading to a climatic final fight against a mysterious foe.
Check out both videos below!
Newly on our radar is director and cinematographer Sergio Herencias who’s dabbled a bit in the action genre in earlier years, including with the 2010 short, The Prague Assignment. Nowadays you’ll catch him with folks like Swiss actor and aspiring action director and screenfighting athlete Betim Alimi as they’ve just put out a fresh new test fight project from Guave Studios titled Knuckle Heads, with Fetim Fetahi also starring. It’s a genuinely awesome, simple story set in a futuristic underground game for the rich where the players are literally in control. And I do mean literally. It’s worth every minute and I highly recommend it.
This next little gem is something I caught a bit late since it was uploaded a month ago. This one is titled The Take Back from director Isaul Trinidad, and I don’t know much about him or his resume. However, I hope to learn more about him if there is more where I can find this, because it’s pretty solid work! Principal performances include that of William Christopher Ford, Jacob Saphir and David Bezeau.
Busy trying to find your happy place on the job? Well, the folks over at U.K.-based Storm Freerun have you covered in their latest collaboration video to push the new HP Stream, accompanied by their usual assortment of epic feats of stuntwork they’ve become known for since 2010. Just follow the Twitter hashtag #WorkFromHappyPlace and see your way to newer heights!
And here, we have Jela Oka Okpara, a longtime advocate of kung fu cinema with a vision that harkens back to the glory days of Golden Harvest and Shaw Brothers. You can see hints of this among other colorful tropes in his latest of two recent shortfilms now available online; The first is Asceneded Masters with Nick Den and Oscar Perez, highlighting the story of Yeshua long before entering his prime as the Biblical savior of mankind himself, Jesus Christ. The project is set to be the first of twelve parts and it is not yet known when the second will arrive since Okpara is busy with other things, so time will tell. The second is a condensed eight minute version of Okpara‘s 2013 dystopian kung fu desert thriller, The Last Girl, which is reportedly in development for a hopeful feature expansion. Den is joined by Lincoln Centeio, William J. Hill and actress Marissa Pistone in a story of two men battle between good and evil for the Earth’s last female.
Both shorts are easily two of the best pieces of online work you’ll ever spot, earning Okpara some much-deserved accolades as a rising figure in martial arts action cinema. The man deserves some studio backing for a feature and I see no reason why that should take any longer.
At long last, we now have two projects well on the way from Japanese action director favorite Shimomura Yuji leading the way on two fronts. The first is a new training featurette with action star Sakaguchi Tak whose final film Re:Born, will commense filming in the Spring of 2015. Close quarters combat expert Inagawa i is coordinating the stylishly brutal and deadly bladed fisticuffs as we await details about the story and characters that will set up this last action-packed hoorah for Sakaguchi fans everywhere.
The other is a trailer that’s been around for a while in lieu of a new shortfilm, Hero, once more with Sakaguchi joined by Mimoto Masanori – the latter recently known for his role as the Yakuza opponent in helmer Tsujimoro Takanori’s Bushido Man. Hero is being slated for a screening at the Yubari film festival in February following an official announcement on January 15, 2015. If you’re an action fan and you happen to be attending, feel free to take notice. (UPDATE: The Facebook embed code has been replaced with a YouTube player code in its place.)
Check out both videos below!
…And finally, a moment of holiday cheer and clarity from Master Ken.
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