There’s more to come as the latest installation of the Urban Action Showcase & Expo readies fans for its explosive ceremony in the next several weeks.
A number of shorts will be screen at the event, and Joey Min’s Art School Dropouts is no exception with most of its work this year getting some screentime at the festival, including the Robert Samuels/Sharif Bey two-part tete-a-tete, Duel, a zany retro tokusatsu spoof titled Mizu Sentai Scubaranger and Stephanie Pham’s explosively violent sequel outing in Lady 2.
Next to Silverback for Rising Tiger Films, Leroy Nguyen will be sure to thrill the crowd in November with Dropkick To The Chest, while Juan Manuel Olmedo will unleash his Fist Of Fire (more on Olmedo later) with co-directed with Diego Fraga, James Cotton will unleash UK action comedy, Tiger Claw, action comedy Solar will illuminate green energy with Mark Cheng and Jean Goto, and Ben Ramsey and Arnold Chon’s latest, long-awaited and hard-earned sci-fi cyberpunk proof immerses you into a new reality with Interface.
Angela Jordan (@ajkick101) will return to the showcase opposite @McDojoLife himself, Robert Ingram, while Kamen Ramen, just off of a major NYCC panel event this month, will be present with shorts like In-Cop-petent, I Didn’t Expect That (Random Twist Fight Scenes), Tyrone Magnus Saves Christmas, Mortal Kombat fanfilm Sonya vs. Kano with Dana Fey and Michael Carey, actor and cosplayer Gerald Javier in costume for Art of Tran’s toku action concept, Lupine Ranger.
Czech Republic’s Adorea Sword Fighting Team will also be on hand with their own projects, including Lukas Kratochvil’s Crossed, while Emma Kazarian’s Fellowship will screen in front of the UASE following appearances at Hollyshorts, California Women’s Film Festival, Indie Memphis and Los Angeles’ Boobs And Blood and Women On The Dark Side festivals.
Here’s a notable list of other shorts that will play at the UASE in November since our previous reporting:
•Alexander Johnson’s The Legend Of Kung Funk 2 with Marco Johnson, Kamaya Williams and Angela Hollis
•Moses Opawumi’s Fear Comes At Night
•Max Isaacson’s Pipe with Zoë Bell and Traci Thoms
•Macus Fahey’s Brooklyn-set Spaghetti western revenge tale, The Boxer And The Bride
•Jordan Cann’s Hurt You and Pizza Fight
•Team Red Pro/Quirktastic collab kinectic webseries/shortform live-action fanfilm, Afro Samurai Champloo
•Branden Arnold’s The Mission
•John Torres’s Breakdown
•Shaun Lupton’s Violet Rain
•Genaro Dominguez’s Connie Saves Gilbert
•Dylan Roger’s Clandestiny
•Michael S. Moore’s Cornered and live-action fanfilm El Gato Negro: Prey
•Steven Chan’s Pseudo
•Qiyu Zhou’s The Koi
•Tatiana Samano’s The Forerunner
•Richard Burgos’ Sonava
•Mark Kamara’s The Memory Of Ink
•Ariel Sinelnikoff’s Catfight
•Tochi Osuji’s Nancy Drew And The Case Of The Missing Food At Feirstein with Dylan Hintz and Micheline Wu
•Kyle Murillo’s The Dream Guardian
•Toom Chanda’s Down And Out
•Anthony A. Miller’s The Art Of Fighting Without Fighting
•Samuel Delitans Lee’s Timecase
•Genia Starcev’s The Dog Walker
•Kent Darden’s Waltz
On the feature film front, this year’s line-up is pretty damn badass and I’ve already pointed out a few, including Silverback, Strega and The Man From Kathmandu.
It’s been a long time coming for The Trigonal helmer, actor and director Vincent Soberano’s initial directorial debut, Blood Hunters: Rise Of The Hybrids. It’s preceeding short film concept won Best Short Film at the UASE in 2016 and now makes its full-fledged return in FMA-heavy feature film fashion, telling of a team of mercenaries assigned to battle swarms of hybrid, vampiric creatures and hunt down their Queen in order to harness her blood to prevent an Aswang apocalypse. Soberano and Ignacio star alongside martial arts stars/actresses Sarah Chang and upcoming The Debt Collector 2 and The Suicide Squad actress Mayling Ng, and actor Monsour Del Rosario.
James Lee’s Kill-Fist took a grim look into the world of a struggling divorcee compelled to partake in an underground fighting tournament with prize money at stake – a tale wrapped in mystery with a heavy dose of retribution to boot. Headshot, Live By Night, Toggle series The Driver and The Night Comes For Us actor Sunny Pang leads the dark action drama for its upcoming UASE premiere with actress Yeet Koe, Alan Yun and many more, and you can read my review here.
Argentinian revenge thriller Justicia Propia stars Juan Manuel Olmedo as a special agent who sets out to turn the streets upside down in search of the men responsible for the murder of his niece on her birthday. The film got its share of screentime for the locals, a fair milestone for director Serigio Mastroberti and actor Juan Manuel Olmedo who has been toiling away at bringing the genre to live in his own country. His latest collaboration with Art Camacho for The Immigrant remains pending, while Justicia Propia may finally get its North American awakening when it premieres at the Urban Action Showcase, and you can read my 2013 review here.
The following is a continuing list of features from around the world that get their day at this year’s Urban Action Showcase:
•Kenuse Sonomura’s Hydra
•Toshinari Yonishi’s Sapphire and Steel Angie
•Aliki Danezi Knutzen’s Chinatown: The Three Shelters
•Keith Collins II’s Maximillian
•Maria Hernandez’s Trapped
•Bryan G. Thompson’s Rogue Cell
•William Lee’s Black Mamba
•Robert Dixon’s The Nice Guy
•Farid Jamal Khan’s Rapist Rapist
The 7th Urban Action Showcase & Expo kicks off its two-day event from November 8. There’s a few more titles listed as there wasn’t any tangible info for some of these, but check out the selections, in addition a list of Action Script competition choices and much more at the official website.
