Well, it's been another work weekend for me as usual, but thankfully it comes with a few rewarding jewels - one of which came to me on Thursday last week.
You'll learn more about it at the bottom of this week's installment of The Hit List, all fresh and ready to go with another weekly round of amazing stunt and training reels by some of today's talented stunt performers and up-and-comers. Victor Plajas revs things up some with his own new reel followed by Erika Frase and 12 year old Bryton Miller whose own reel comes with a famous, uplifting movie monologue from a certain star of a boxing movie franchise.
Rounding out the playlist are reels by Ivan Pecuh, Anthony Oh, Olivier Lunardi, Erika Keck, Craig Putman, Ari Loeb, Tyler Hall, Philippe Vonlanthen, Diandra Milliner Stoddard and Michel Quach.
Click here or below and enjoy!
There's only one bit of promotion to share this week. Thus, it's been a while since we've seen something from Jabronie Pictures's actor, stuntman and filmmaker Fernando Jay Huerto who is busy working his way up the stunt and film ladder in Los Angeles. At least here and now we have something to look forward to from the man who brought such projects as Gun Point, Heart Shot Grand Prix and indie tokusatsu webseries Battle Hero Absolute, and here and now with a trailer for his own Four Points Film Project entry Codex Hero: Excel. Click here or below and check it out:
Down the wire it is for this week's Hit List and with a slate of nine videos from around the web, we kick it off with Andrew Kim's latest test fight shindig with Gee "Lil' Bomb" Jay and Miguelina Olivares, Leif Johnson's latest pair of lensing fight practice collab over in the U.K. with performers Tien Hoang, Wai Ku Lam and Jean-Paul Ly, followed by stuntman Kai Fung Rieck's own practice action upload with a nimble group of stunt players over at the acclaimed Seoul Action School.
--
Keeping up the momentum is a daring new practice action short over at Distinctive Light titled Black And Blue with none other than Felix King and Spencer Mulligan, followed by Emmanuel Manzanares with a brutal new zombie action piece now online with Johnny Yang, Bryan Sloyer, Jerry Quill, Vonzell Carter, Brendon Huor and Nicholas Verdi, as well as Team Balestra's latest swordplay montage, and a new entry by Mark Karaï David with his latest metaphysical action piece, Focus, starring Gary Cothenet opposite Film Combat Syndicate favorite Kefi Abrikh.
--
The next video comes from a direct entry courtesy of filmmaker Malcolm Washington who messaged our fanpage with the latest action short now available over at their Red Ronin Productions channel. For this, we look at The Demon's Challenge, a tale highlighting a number of random fighters confronted by an unknown man in a black suit who forces them to stand their ground as a tried and true testimony of the fighting spirit.
I watch a LOT of shorts and many of them don't make the cut at Hit List entries but this one surprised me to a great degree. While much of this is filmed in darkly lit rooms, you can see plenty of the action in its fluid delivery and energetic pacing. The choreography is impressive as is the execution and editing, and the accompanying drama for the film's narrative also makes this a real treat. Personally I had some Bloodmoon flashbacks, which is pretty telling of the effort being made here and as such, you can pretty much see that these folks here at Red Ronin out in Missouri have done their homework. I'm real proud of them and I hope to see even more from this crew.
--
After this, it's one of the newest videos from that crazy crew of Aussies over at The RackaRacka titled The Naruto Showdown in promotion of Naruto Online with links availabile in their own description, followed by Kickback Production's own Donald Tucker as he takes some of today's most trendy dance moves and applies them to his next level of kung fu training in the new action comedy short, The 37th Chamber.
--
The Dance Nocturnal continues the playlist onward with a whimsical new action short about a hitman who walks in on the wrong thugs at the right time. It's Garrett Atkinson's Gauntlet Run: Origins starring Vic Matthews, Sam Eldred and writer, producer and choreographer Jyo Carolino, the latter who came on my radar with a trailer for a short called I Am Spartan and hopefully we'll learn more about it soon. In the meantime, this little gem should motivate you enough to keep guys like Jyo on your radar from here on as he keeps up his craft.
En route to finishing up this week's entries, we meet actor, martial artist and filmmaker Troy Sandford who initially came across our way several months back with a martial arts webseries titled The Challenger, among other projects. This time he returns with co-director Marcel Brandel for the inspired new action horror short, The Cool: No Heaven For A Gangster, taking cues from acclaimed hip-hop artist, Lupe Fiasco's 2006 album, "Food & Liquor" and ultimately delivering a hybrid visionary concept with a powerful message...
Either that or you just get to listen to cool music and watch a zombie whoop some ass. Sound better?
--
Last and way, WAAAY far from least is a 2007 shortfilm from directors Benni Diez and Marinko Spahič. It's a project for which I've watched its trailer on many an evening back when I had my first working computer and things like AIM and MySpace were still useful, and actor and martial artist Mathis Landwehr was just breaking through as a debut film star in Johnanes Jaeger's groundbreaking Kampfansage: Der Letzte Schuler.
Titled Kingz, Landwehr is joined by Olli Banjo with a story that sets out to the bowels of the nightclub underworld where two drug traffickers find themselves way in over their heads when the meeting ensues family peril, followed by a deadly supernatural encounter with bloody, brutal and gut wrenching results.
This is one project I regret not having seen only until this weekend. Diez himself shared it on his Vimeo channel back in 2011 with reuploads on Banjo's own channel in 2014 and then on Landwehr's channel just earlier this year. For what it's worth, I'm just so glad to have finally caught it having been a fan of Landwehr's for the last eleven years. Kingz goes at the top of the action horror list if you love a good splatterfest and I defy you to think this one doesn't meet your needs as an action fan once you've seen it for yourself. The action takes place later in the second half but the build-up is terrific, as are the stunt sequences and hard-hitting action with great key performances by Banjo, a sword-wielding Landwehr and actor Ben Schamma - recently known for his famous cosplay antics in this web-acclaimed little Star War action short from March.
Click here or below and enjoy the full playlist from top to bottom!
If you have the time to spare then you're more than welcome to sample last week's Hit List gems to suit your fancy. Be sure to subscribe to these channels and share the Hit List articles with all your friends to help build viewership! And, especially, if you or someone you know makes some of the equally best and greatest action shorts online or has an amazing demo reel you feel is deserves a spot on our Hit List stage, hit us up at filmcombatsyndicate@gmail.com!