KFMG Podcast S05 Episode 51: Sarah Chang / Vincent Soberano

Posted in Podcasts
No Comments
KFMG Podcast S05 Episode 51: Sarah Chang / Vincent Soberano

“Our first year together was probably the equivalent of many couples’ first five years. It was so intense.” Vincent Soberano

You could say it was Jackie Chan that first brought together the Manila-based martial arts power couple, Sarah Chang and Vincent Soberano. They first met at the Jackie Chan Stuntman Training Centre; a huge complex in Tianjin, used by people from all over the world to train in the martial arts and make it in the movies. Vincent – a former professional fighter and pioneer of mixed martial arts in China, who helped to train the country’s first UFC fighters – …

Read More

Cold Harvest (1999)

Posted in Reviews
No Comments
Cold Harvest (1999)

Sci-fi yarn starring Gary Daniels as a gunslinger in a dystopian, Mad Max-style future in which a virus has turned the human race into lawless scavengers. Daniels is notorious bounty hunter Roland Cheney protecting the pregnant widow of his twin brother, whose unborn child holds a resistant gene to the plague, making her the target of Little Ray (Genesse) and his marauding gang of bikers. The film is shot in constant darkness and confined to a number of repeated locations at Nu Image’s South African studio, which gives this straight-to-video film a particularly stagey quality. The apocalyptic premise is very …

Read More

Extraction (2020)

Posted in Reviews
No Comments
Extraction (2020)

Taut, ambitious and exciting directorial debut from Atomic Blonde, Captain America and Wolf Warrior II stunt coordinator Sam Hargrave, who throws just about everything into the mix: car chases and crashes to gun fu, sniper battles, exploding helicopters, knife fights, pile-ups and shoot-outs, with most of it performed in-camera and shot on location in the vivid, hectic urban sprawl of Dhaka. Hargrave is seemingly following the same career trajectory as fellow former stunt performers Chad Stahelski and David Leitch (founders of 87eleven Action Design), and although this film shares their realistic and grounded approach to action, this isn’t simply John Wick Goes …

Read More

The Trigonal: Fight for Justice (2018)

Posted in Reviews
No Comments
The Trigonal: Fight for Justice (2018)

Somewhere in-between the gritty social commentary of Erik Matti and the revenge-driven action of Pedring Lopez, Vincent Soberano now adds his voice to a golden age for Filipino fight films. Like Maria and BuyBust, this has a strong international appeal (filmed in the Philippines but mostly in the English language) with action roots embedded in indigenous art-forms; Filipino stick-fighting, pole forms, blade-work and ground-fighting. The film also stars a wushu ace, Sarah Chang, adding another dimension to the martial arts on display. The story is nothing you haven’t seen before; it concerns an underground, ‘anything-goes’ fight tournament called the Trigonal, …

Read More

Manhattan Chase (2000)

Posted in Reviews
No Comments
Manhattan Chase (2000)

‘Manhattan chase’? ‘Manhattan saunter’ is more appropriate. This cheap action yarn suffers from some critical pacing issues, not to mention a poor sound mix and fluffed lines which, for whatever reason, have been kept in the film. Shot on the fly in New York, this has all the hallmarks of a Godfrey Ho head-kicker (sorry, “Godfrey Hall”), reuniting with his Honor and Glory star, Cynthia Rothrock, as well as veteran Hong Kong stunt performer and martial artist Steve Tartalia, who also acts as producer and stunt coordinator, as well as having a supporting role as a scumbag. Dashing Loren Avedon, in …

Read More

KFMG Podcast S05 Episode 50: Gareth Evans

Posted in Podcasts
No Comments
KFMG Podcast S05 Episode 50: Gareth Evans

“It’s such a privilege to be able to call what we do a career, and to call it a job. It’s absolutely insane.”

Through his trio of martial arts films – Merantau (2009), The Raid (2011) and The Raid 2 (2014) – filmmaker Gareth Evans helped to put Indonesian action cinema on the map, launched the careers of a new generation of fight stars (including Iko Uwais, Yayan Ruhian and Cecep Arif Rahman), and created some of the most exhilarating, inventive, and game-changing fight sequences of modern times. Not bad for a young filmmaker from South Wales, who grew up watching Jackie Chan films with …

Read More

Profile: Gareth Evans

Posted in Profiles
No Comments
Profile: Gareth Evans

Date of birth: April 6, 1980 (Hirwaun, Cynon Valley, Wales)

Occupation: Director, writer, editor, fight choreographer.

Biography: The filmmaker Gareth Evans was born and raised in Hirwaun, Cynon Valley, in South Wales. He grew up watching and loving martial arts films, particularly those made in Hong Kong starring Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung. He graduated from the University of Glamorgan (now the University of South Wales) in 2003 with an MA in Scriptwriting for Film and Television. While at university, he befriended the cinematographer Matt Flannery, who has worked with Evans on every one of his projects to date.

In 2003, Evans …

Read More

Charlie’s Angels (2019)

Posted in Reviews
No Comments
Charlie’s Angels (2019)

Elizabeth Banks’ self-conscious reboot of the Charlie’s Angels TV show may be right-on in its gender politics, but in the midst of its own worthiness, Banks seemingly forgets to have fun, too. The McG films were problematic, yes, but they were also batshit crazy, and all the better for it. Having pop stars like Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj on the constantly rotating soundtrack may be a ploy to make the film relevant to millennials, but surely no-one under 25 cares about Charlie’s Angels; the film’s rampant consumerism (of cars, clothes, watches, tech and travel) only highlights its existence as a …

Read More

The Iron Mask (2019)

Posted in Reviews
No Comments
The Iron Mask (2019)

For those who felt shortchanged by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s non-action cameo in the 2004 Jackie Chan adventure yarn, Around the World in 80 Days, this similarly silly Chinese-Russian adventure yarn makes up for lost time by pitting the two ageing action stars against each other in the Tower of London. It’s a perfect setting, with both stars behaving in a complimentary and wholesome manner, with Arnie hamming it up as the Tower’s chief warden (not even attempting the British accent) and Chan playing his prisoner, a bearded and bedraggled kung fu mystic. They have a typically zany slapstick tussle involving swords and …

Read More

Blood Hunters: Rise of the Hybrids (2019)

Posted in Reviews
No Comments
Blood Hunters: Rise of the Hybrids (2019)

A monster-martial arts mash-up from Vincent Soberano based on the story of the evil ‘Aswang’ spirits from Filipino folklore. For a 70-minute movie, you get your money’s worth: its packed with stabby, slicey vampire-slaying, with Soberano using a well-worn apocalyptic premise to showcase some exemplary, weapons-based Filipino martial arts sequences. The back-story feels slightly superfluous; something about the Aswang possessing magical blood which infiltrates the human gene pool, creating a hybrid army led by Naga (Temujin Shirzada), who goes full-on crazy and needs to be taught a lesson. The final assault on the Aswang lair takes up a huge part …

Read More
« Previous Page
Next Page »