Hey guys! Guess what? I’m currently in the middle of finishing FIVE interviews of which I recently posted one! This and obviously I ended up posting some more news bits that needed sharing while trying to find room to breathe in between my workloads on the site and in my life, generally, but I still managed to squeeze in some extra time to scavenge the web for worthy Hit List material, and so it is!
As usual, our Hit List begins with a mighty playlist packed with stunt, martial arts and demo reels and normally I try to truncate down to ten. However, there were so many great reels of the ones I found that I’ve ended up extending the list to sixteen twenty-five, and we begin with Eric Jacobus‘s newest Tekken movelist induction as Paul Phoenix. The playlist completes itself with reels by Vincent Khai, Tyler Weaver Jr., Marissa Labog, Jasi Lanier, Artur Syc, Christopher Leps, Scott Loeser, Stephanie Fonceca, Michelle Jubilee Gonzalez, Riot co-star Amy Sturdivant, Nurgaliev Zhussan, Simu Liu of Neon Nights, Malay Kim, Melissa Prather, Matt Philliben, Tyler Williams, Benjamin Redic II, Kevin Laurent, Mitra Suri, Kyle Freemantle, Lacey Robinson, Andrew Neis, Felix Quinton and Bobby Holland Hanton.
Now it’s onto the trailers and the first just recently comes brandished with its new official one-sheet for director Jeremy Andrew Davis’s forthcoming Hitman fan film, Contract: Redemption, the story centered on the world’s deadliest assassin who seeks to protect the only people he loves as he’s himself cornered by his younger, genetically advanced clone. The fan film has been in the works since roughly around 2013, aided by an Indiegogo campaign that has since helped carry the production through the last few years and at long last, its completion is bound for this summer. You can follow the official fanpage for more info.
The second is more of a quick teaser clip and comes courtesy of Spectacle Pictures’s Jela Oba Okpara whose latest, A Band Of Thieves is on the way. We shared a couple of pictures a while back in a previous Hit List but we finally have a smidget of footage to illustrate some of what we’ll see when it airs online.
Now that all else is settled, it’s time to get fighting, and the fights are aplenty this week starting with a quick interlude featuring Anthony Nanakorn Panom and Haga Akihiro, fighting each other for no reason. Like… none whatsoever. But it looks great and Haga-san really sells that kick to the head at end.
The second places stuntwoman Elizabeth Carpenter front and center of a minute-long experimental Bourne-style sequence directed by stunt gals PeiPei Yuan and Tamiko Brownlee, followed by Dominique Smith‘s own test fight contribution opposite Matt Daos and AJL Stunts’s own Adam Lytle with his own collaboration featuring Nate Hitpas and Alex Hashioka-Oatfield.
The fifth video in the playlist is about a few years coming and is finally officially online thanks to filmmaker, actor and martial artist Felix Fukuyoshi Rwwue. It’s a clip of him and MMA purveyor, actor Liu Lian Jie from a shortfilm that Ruwwe himself is keeping unreleased. He states his case in the video description but at best, the fight itself is finally out in the open showcases just why it is that many performers and creatives like Ruwwe should be celebrated and welcomed with more opportunities in film that accomodate his flourished skillset.
Rounding it all out is a actor and filmmaker Josh Zacharias of Wuji Films in a minute-long test fight with Anthony Javier, a quick fight interlude between Mounir Quazzani and Brandon McClary and the latest Jet Li-inspired episode in the Lunar Stunts shortfilm saga, The Fighting Journey with Mickey Arce and Irvin Nguyen.
And finally we enter the shortfilm segment of this week’s Hit List and the last two projects I’m going to share will be well worth your time.
The first is a bit more regional with the new Indonesian action short, Pigi, a word that means “Go” and is normally pronounced as Pergi. The project comes from a fine group of kids over at Say Yuith, who clearly take their cues from their more popular local filmic influences (The Raid, etc.) judging by some of the recent content on their channel.
Pigi is primarily amateur and lacking plenty in areas such as acting and overall quality, and clearly shows needs improvement. Despite these flaws, I’m sharing this project for the effort they appear to put in for the action sequences for this project, and all in a story that involves gang warfare and counterfeit money from what I could roughly gather in the description (Google Translate sucks). At any rate, I’m glad to help bring Pigi out of obscurity and I hope you enjoy it.
Last and far from least is a little something special and with all the fandom in the world in the air this year for all things Star Wars. Director Shawn Bu clearly has a case to make and he’s purely done so once more with his newest fan shortfilm, Darth Maul: Apprentice with actor Ben Schamma in the title role opposite a squad of Jedi led by martial arts action favorite, actor Mathis Landwehr with actress Svenja Jung.
The project hails partly from Bu’s own company, T7 Productions who specialize in some of the most dynamic stunt and film performance to date. The team itself has evolved over the years and I’m personally happy to have kept up with them so far. Stuntman Vi-Dan Tran, who himself is no stranger to lightsaber action, directed the sequences down to a tee with Landwehr, Jung, action actor Eskindir Tesfay, and all involved presenting a purely brilliant show of love and absolute quality for sci-fi and action filmmaking.
This one is a must-see, and that you must do!
I hope that whet the appetite some! If not, you can always click here and find more where that came from. Beyond that, if you or someone you know is a filmmaker or stunt performer and bares a project you think should be considered a Hit, hit us up at filmcombatsyndicate@gmail.com!