THE HIT LIST – February 22, 2016

This week’s Hit List is going to have a few amazing updates from previous posts. Hopefully you’ve been keeping up, but I’ll gladly give a few refreshers.

For now, if you’ve been with me before, you already know how this goes. Ten new select stunt and training reels are here for your viewing pleasure courtesy of Katie Kramer, Michael Lehr, Marina Yordanova, Blake Lee Roach, Jessica Erin Bennett, Liam Day, Dale Girard, Kai Ferris, Alejandro Gil and Ian Van Temperly.

Onto some crazy new promotional bits, and up first are a few updates with a neat little exclusive pictoral courtesy of filmmaker Logan Cross. The photos are locations that will be used come this May when production finally commences for the new feature-length superhero action adventure, Nightshadow.

If you’re not too familiar with its roots, you can click here to learn more about the project which initially launched via Kickstarter which successfully managed to achieve iys crowdfunding goals for specific services to be rendered (i.e, costumes, prop creation for the performers, etc.). Pre-production is currently underway with an official website now live and running, and Cross is allowing Film Combat Syndicate to share some exclusive recent behind-the-scenes photos from location scouting in East Texas which you can view below.

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Next up is a poster for a project that you’ll be sure to take note of in the coming months. Thanks to filmmaking duo Adam Davis and Will Corona Pilgrim, the new shortfilm, No Touching is well on its way after filming last year following a successful Kickstarter campaign in late 2014. Action actresses Zoë Bell and Heidi Moneymaker are our chosen few who decide to take matters into their own hands when they learn of women being assaulted in a shady haunted house attraction.

It’ll be awhile before we see some more from this lot, but the artwork should lend you quite the eyeful until then.

As for trailers, the first one is a doozy if you’re a Lara Croft fan like filmmaker Aurélien Sallé who launched a KissKissBankBank crowdfunder in 2013 to help his own shortfilm become a reality. That reality now comes in the form of actress and cosplayer Tiphaine Vaudable’s starring role in the new fan film, Tomb Raider: Reborn with action sequences by Kefi Abrikh who defintely knows his way around fight scenes.

The second comes courtesy of independent filmmaker Cullen Cook whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making late last year among several at Applebees in Times Square, New York City where they were attending the Urban Action Showcase & Expo at the neighboring AMC Empire 25 theatre. There, he premiered his latest shortfilm, The Exit Wound, centered on a boxer forced to come to terms with his past amid a culmination of personal and professional problems. 

Having won Best Action Sequence at the UASE, the project is finally on par to release online on March 23. Cook himself stars along with actress DeShawna Phillips and co-stars Rising Tiger Films’s own Leroy Nguyen and Edmond Shum who designed the action.

Watch both trailers below!

And now for the fights and there are quite several of them. For this, we begin with an always warm welcome for Eric Nguyen, here and now with Everlast, the 14th entry of his Fighting Journey series and stunt woman Molly McIntyre returning for a second round. Next up is a 2-for-1 special from Emmanuel Manzanares with performances by Suzuki Kimmy, Michael Lehr, Micah Karns and Tony Vittorioso, followed by two fencing pieces – one from French indie action favorite Godefroy Ryckewaert, and the other from Jeff Centauri with a Star Wars fan film of his own. The latter three include an action comedy bit led by Taylor Tai from Eunoia Creations as he battles YouTube Comments In Real Life, another from a fun group of stunties in Saudi Arabia called Stunt Guys Team titled Thieves, and the latter from filmmaker Vlad Rimburg returning with another week of fine, hearty action for Throwdown, led by Antal Kalik!

Getting right down to the wire here are a fine group of shortfilms and they’re all well worth the audience. First up is titled Captured courtesy of the A/M Show channel, followed by award-winning actor Mads Mikkelssen in his third shortfilm stint with Danish interior design company BoConcept titled The Fight!

Third in line introduces actor and dancer Daniel “Cloud” Campos to the Film Combat Syndicate Hit List, now sharing directorial duties with Spencer Susser for the imaginative TropFest 24 award-winning feat of music and action, Shiny. From there, we acquaint ourselves once more with Joseph Le who clearly takes his cues from Hong Kong comedy in his own three-way pizza free-for-all, The Last Slice, before getting into some bounty huntin’ trouble in Wadi Jones’s new action comedy short, Bounty, and an epic new fan short from the folks over at Martial Club attributed to Yuen Woo-Ping’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword Of Destiny.

The final piece in the playlist is 23-minute ode to action and suspense from partnering Canucks Kyle Wong and Joshua Zacharias for the new thriller, Vendetta. Wong himself has a knack for writing some pretty interesting scripts that introduce really darkly-toned characters and so his vision here seems fitting. There are several kinks throughout the film between audio as well as some of the action, but I was instantly sold on the trailer so I’m compelled to share it regardless and I think you’ll enjoy it for just the overall performances and story in general.

Enjoy the playlist!

Take heed of these channels, subscribe and head over here for last week’s entries if you missed them. And, be advised – we love sharing new and awesome shorts as jam-packed with action and pure talent, so if you have a stunt reel or a project you would like added here, feel free to contact us at filmcombatsyndicate@gmail.com!