THE HIT LIST: January 30, 2017

Filmmaker and actor/stuntman Eric Jacobus gets in touch with video game personas, Tekken’s Devil Jin and Street Fighter’s Balrog for two cool character movelist videos. Following that are stunt reels by stuntwoman Brianna Goldie, stuntman and filmmaker Fernando Jay Huerto, and fellow stunt players Morgan Benoit, C.J. Padera, Thanh An Nguyen, Devin Regan, Cody Robinson, Timothy Johnson and the stunt canucks over at the newly established Action 88.

Promotional assets this week first bring us to director Samuel Smith’s latest shortfilm, Tengu: Birdmen Of The Mountains. The project has already become a festival favorite in the past year with some awards to its credit starring UK actor and martial artist David Cheung as a father fighting to protect his family from the deadly flying demons of Japanese folklore.

Cheung is already in production for the upcoming feature film, The Real Target, while it is being noted that Smith himself is currently developing a feature film expansion of his acclaimed short. Hopefully a teaser will arise along with the shortfilm itself soon, although you can still catch a highlight clip of it HERE, along with a poster just below.

Trailer-wise, we have Spanish stunt talent Dani Medina who I’ve covered at least once or twice in this site’s young history, now launching his own YouTube channel where he’ll be hosting some cool new stunt demos and projects of his own. Following that is a promo for an upcoming short from the folks over at UK-based KPR Productions titled V.S.A. Tournament, an action short film inspired by fighting game lore and host to a raft of up-and-coming action actors, and a teaser for Marcus Shakesheff’s DC Universe shortfilm nod, The British Superman.

Off to the internet’s test fight and shorfilm action with a round by performers Megan Hui and Ken Do followed by a cool new test fight over at Distinctive Light dubbed Halfway with Reuben Maldonado and Deej Christopher Harley, and a fantastic new Mortal Kombat-inspired fan fight from filmmaker Andrew Kim over at the freshly established Kamen Ramen Studios. Darren Holmquist and Heriberto Inda trade blows thereafter in a test fight of their own before Shawn Bernal gets into an epic battle of close quarters comedic brilliance from filmmaker Bryan Sloyer, and Michael McCurdy takes us to a B-movie fantasy daydream cheesefest with Sage Tomoki leading the charge in Ninja Commando!

Actress and comedy exponent Eleonora “Lele” Pons caps things off with a short tale of her own in the form of Catwoman’s Untold Story, host to a series of unfortunate mishaps highlighting how our ill-gotten Batman-obsessed cat lady lands the role of anti-heroine ahead of her impending epic battle with Dogman, played by Jordan Okubo. Pons is doubled brilliantly by prime stuntwoman Pam Wellington whose latest stunt reel I included in this year’s second installment of the Hit List. Enjoy, and for that matter, enjoy the playlist below!

Finishing off this week’s Hit List is probably one of the best, most awkward kung fu comedy tales ever told online featuring an actor poorly costumed as an Asian. Granted, of course, notable actor and filmmaker Joey Min makes it work in all kinds of ways in the webseries, My Asian Auntie which follows Auntie and her niece, played by Stephanie Pham, and life in New Jersey as Auntie is forced to take on other fellow Aunties, and confront a notorious local gang with her kung fu skills. Min and Pham each get their moments of martial arts comedy and thrills along with Patrick Banzali, Angela Jordan, Gee “Lil’ Bomb” Jay and others in the series which rolled out weekly late last year. Whether you’re new to Min or Art School Dropouts, I think you’ll have some fun with this one.