THE HIT LIST – January 11, 2015

Starting things off here is a fresh new playlist of stunt and fighting reels, and I’m starting this one off with an excellent fan video attributed to action star Marko Zaror. Rounding out the playlist are demo reels from stuntwoman Michaela McAllister, Jose “Vertical” Jimenez, Kefi Abrikh, Morgan Benoit, Anna Grjukach, Airon Armstrong, Erin Clyne, Lawrence Nicklin, a fresh new company reel by Lunar Stunts Action Cinema, and seasoned stunt coordinator Alain Figlarz.

Up next is a slate of behind the scenes photos and stills from Cornered helmer Michael Moore’s upcoming comic book shortfilm adaptation, El Gato Negro: Prey. You can read more about it here as Moore works toward its completion with actor Bobby Hernandez in the title role, and a cameo by author and creator Richard Dominguez. In the meantime, we have several stills in the album below featuring Hernandez and Moore at work along with fight choreographer Aaron D. Alexander, actress Britnii Garcia and actor Conrad Gonzlaes who plays the villain.

On to the fight action now, and this week we start things off with another Vimeo exclusive featuring action actresses Ishida Sachiko and Vanessa Bojanowski with Lovel Johnson Jr. at the helm.

Beneath that is a playlist where you get a peek at co-star and director Florian Metzner’s new short, Aslan, about young Turkish martial arts fighter who travels to Germany to rescue his long lost, wayward brother from Berlin’s criminal underworld. The clip is a small teaser bit featuring action designed by Germany’s own Movie-Do and a release may arrive as soon as later this year pending an outcome within festivals.

The rest of the slate includes French action actor Anthony Pho’s latest show of skill with the EMC Monkeys in Le Fight, rising star Eric Jacobus‘s latest 2D “Street Fighter X Tekken” brawl as Kazuya against Ryu, Wadi Jones’s four way duel in Elevator, a re-uploaded experimental piece from Kazu Patrick Tang and Team Jaika in Thailand, and Mike Carr’s newest battle against mind-controlled thugs in one-shot free-for-all, Headhacker directed by Glen Harris.

Sword Fight (Vanessa & Sachiko) from Sachiko Ishida on Vimeo.

This week in teasers, an earlier trailer tease is now accompanied by a full trailer for the latest Wuji Films/Black Ice 140 collaboration, Vendetta: Part Two. Wuji’s Joshua Zacharias and Black Ice 140’s Kyle Wong star in the story of one assassin’s vengeance against the competition, with the first part airing back in February last year. Check out the teaser and today’s full trailer in the player below along eith a new poster

And lastly, we have two distinctive, awesome shortfilms to share, and the first comes courtesy of RocketJump with the release of Jess’s Big Date. Clinton Jones directs actress Ashly Burch in the role of an international spy struggling to live a life of normalcy… and you may already have an idea on how that story goes!

The second and final shortfilm hails from director Thomas Jay for his latest, Breach. The Telugu project has been a few years in the making but has finally arrived this month with Naresh Varma and Ashwin starring as warring spies representing opposing agencies. This little low-budget indie has quite a grim ending, but engages some pretty ambitious visuals in addition to some explosive action sequences and fights that do ample service for viewers. It’s worth a look and the dialogue is a Telugu/English hybrid so you’re not completely lost.