Last year was the first full year of the Monday night The Hit List. To that end, it’s been pretty successful and I’m very glad that a lot of people are picking up on this column here at Film Combat Syndicate. It’s pretty rewarding too, and I can’t wait to share as much of the internet’s amazing quality creative content in the next 360 days. Alas, it is the top 2016 and I’m curious to see where this goes…
First up is a fresh little tricking gathering reel courtesy of Trick DynamiX, followed by stunt reels from Singapore-based Peps Goh, Gennady Krutko, Kendall Wells, Mohamed Benabdellah, stunt group K Dynamique, stunt performers Will Willoughby, Jamie DiLeo and Jay Hawkins, and an explosive, crushing new self-spoken stunt coordinator reel by Baur Abishev.
Up next, it’s off to the crowdfunding department with two new videos:
While we advance into 2016 with what awaits us in film, we’ll still be seeing any number of inspired filmmakers looking to have an impact of their own. Such is the case for actor and martial artist Peter Liciaga, who comes well endowed with numerous commercial, film and theater credits, all in a world he hopes to invite filmgoers in with the forthcoming new martial arts drama, Yes, They Bleed. The plot itself is very compelling and you can learn much more about this production via Indiegogo where Luciaga has officially begun raising money to help pay the performers upon production next month, so CLICK HERE to learn all you need to about this project.
The next video after that comes from filmmaker Joey Min who took to task last year to raise money via crowdfunding The Forgotten Kingdom, a webseries about live-action role players. Min is one of the best and most talented fight choreographer today, having cut his teeth for well over twelve years in martial arts action filmmaking of his own and the project itself is very promising in that regard on top of the overall story. Unfortunately, crowdfunding hit a snag, but that didn’t stop Min from raising the money himself, and as such, the folks over at Art School Dropouts have a new sample video to share with a glimpse into what the show will entail.
Click the play button below for both videos!
As for posters, we do have some artwork ahead of the release of Rage, an upcoming shortfilm from director Jonathan Cocco. Emilien De Falco, who I’ve seen perform in a few action shorts in the past few years and co-stars in Boyka: Undisputed later this year, takes the lead as a former assassin looking to avenge the deathof his wife. You can catch a teaser HERE for good measure, while three character posters are availbale below featuring Falco, and co-stars David Neyts and Josef Cannon.
At long last, it’s time to get fighting and the first load of fight to set the new year off properly come with a slew of videos made at the bottom of last year. The first four feature a crew of folks led by Tony Vittorioso and Micah Karns, followed by Nathan Quattrini’s Final Fight Of 2015 test sequence.
The fifth comes from actor, martial artist and fight choreographer Umar Khan who is now coming into 2016 and debuting with his own team now in the form of Stunt Fighting Concept, and they’ve since presented a sample video to further showcase their own potentially game-changing, revolutionary style of fight choreography on film.
No Balas al Aire is number six in the playlist – a themed martial arts short for public awareness that uses quirky comedy in dealing with a major issue with respect to firearms in Puerto Rico – It’s entirely in Spanish and while the humor is mostly regional in context, the short does deliver its desired effect courtesy of director Wildchild Gil Sanabria who also co-stars.
The seventh comes from The Blasian Twins for The Executioner with co-star and director Jason Croom and a special appearance by Marrese Crump, followed by actress and stuntwoman PeiPei Alena Yuan’s latest foray behind the camera for Invisible Danger starring David “Dax” Bauer and Seth Austin, and Cinematic Fight Studio’s latest thrilling action short, Unveiled with actress Megan Mann front and center.
The tenth and final piece is a proof of concept short from filmmaker Logan Cross tited The Hunters: Betrayal, starting Edward Bossert and Tamiko Brownlee with fight choreography by Mario Rocha (Saving Sara, Larceny). Pull up your chair, kids. This’ll be fun!
Lastly, we have two fantastic new and much longer shortfilms making the rounds.
First up, actor and filmmaker Jake Ramos is finally out and about with his latest crime drama, Last Breath. Ramos joins Sean Leeroy and Lyndsey Wurch in a tale of an amnesiac’s grim recollection of events after waking up on a beach with a gun, a ring and a photo of a mysterious woman.
The shortfilm is now available via the Online Film Festival for all of January following its Best Director win at the International Film Festival Of Manhattan in New York City back in November. Enjoy!
And finally, actor, martial artist and stuntman Alex Chung has been long in the making with his latest shortfilm, Werewolf Assassin – an ode to a host of grindhouse era cinemafare replete with cheese, screams, overkill and gore galore with actor and stuntman Kyle Stewart front and center. Watch this newest masterpiece of mayhem in the player below and keep an eye out for Chung in 2016, because this is definitely not the last we will be seeing of him.
