‘Blood Hunters’ — Thirsting for global entry

If IndieGo Pictures’ Blood Hunters: Rise of the Hybrids succeeds in the international box-office, or initially at least in Asia, the Philippines may have a chance to make it big as a source of crowd-drawing action films mainly starring Pinoy actors and actresses with a flair for martial arts.
The upcoming film is an expansion of an award-winning short film, which goes with the simple title Blood Hunter. It won Best Short Film at the 2016 Cinemax HBO Action Film Competition and at the 2016 Urban Action Showcase & Expo. The film was written, produced and directed by Filipino filmmaker and martial arts action star Vincent Soberano. He also megs IndieGo’s upcoming full-length Blood Hunters, as well as co-stars.
 
MEET VINCENT SOBERANO. Born and raised in Bacolod City, Negros Oriental, Soberano (no blood ties with Liza) moved to California, USA in his late teens. The filmmaker is passionate about promoting Filipino martial arts through movies to an international audience.
“Foreign companies have used Filipino martial arts in blockbuster action films like John Wick, Jason Bourne, Frankenstein, but no one knows it’s Filipino martial arts because it is pulled off by Hollywood stars. It’s about time Filipino actors with extensive martial arts training topbill much-admired action films,” asserts Soberano.
A Muay Thai world champion, Soberano studied film and television in San Diego, California, where he first started working for Stu Segall Productions in 1991. He founded the San Diego Asian American Repertory Theater to help promote Asian American actors in Southern California.
He later moved to Los Angeles and worked in a variety of film projects for several years until he pursued a career in IT for more than 15 years. In 2006, he moved to Beijing, China to pursue his passion in filmmaking and martial arts. He opened a series of Mixed Martial Arts studios in Beijing and also founded an independent film production company.
His recent acting work includes The Ultimate Fighter (China), Jackie Chan’s Police Story 2013 and the Alfa Angel Project. His documentary film On The Brink: Uncharted Waters (2016) was aired on National Geographic Channel worldwide. And then he megged Blood Hunters, which garnered eight nominations and a Best Short Film award in international festivals.
Blood Hunters’ full-length version has just ended its full three months of principal photography in the lush forests of Morong, Bataan, specifically Sabang, which used to be the sprawling refugee center for freedom-seeking Vietnamese in the mid-1980s. They were tagged as “the boat people.” With the project’s termination, the estate has since become part of the Bataan Techno Park.
 
THE HUNTERS AND THE HUNTING. The full-length film tells the story of a team of mercenaries looking for native vampires (our very own covey of  aswang) so they can drain their blood for a bio-transforming company that wants to discover what is in their DNAs that allow them to transform and re-generate, if not rejuvenate for a certain number of years.
The team is a band of superbly trained martial artists composed of Filipinos and foreigners of varying races. But the tribe of aswang and other supernatural Filipinos they will encounter has evolved into fighting machines themselves and are well-equipped with indigenous and high-tech weaponry that make them incredibly powerful. It will not be a walk in the park to drain the blood of a single Pinoy supernatural being.
 “You will see our mythical creatures such as  aswang  and  kapre,  diwata  and duwende, multo and tikbalang like you have never seen them before. You will also intently watch fights and stunts you have never seen before,” Soberano practically vows.
He fiercely believes that action films with distinct cultural components, when well-conceived and well-produced, will be well-loved by moviegoers in many parts of the world. He envisions Blood Hunters to become the grand Filipino action film that will showcase Philippine martial arts.
He points out that box-office hits like Blade, Matrix, Frankenstein, Warcraft, Assassins Creed, Man with the Iron Fist and a slew of other hard-hitting blockbusters had cultural elements.
Soberano intones that Blood Hunters is set to join that list and make a mark in the international stage.
 
THE RETURN OF MONSOUR. The movie will also serve as Monsour del Rosario’s grand comeback. The action star-turned-politician is a childhood friend of Soberano and both started martial arts training in their Bacolod hometown. Del Rosario eventually emerged as taekwondo champion and was sent to the Olympics once to represent the country in non-competitive exhibition games in taekwondo.
Bosom buddy Soberano says del Rosario had always longed to go back to acting and doing fights and stunts in front of the camera. “When I was the one who became busy doing films, I kept telling him that I would help him do a grand comeback. Well, it took some years for me to make good on the promise, but it is here now,” Soberano confides.
The full-length Blood Hunters also marks the first time they are appearing together. “We practically have the same goals as actor-martial artists: To inspire the young to get into martial arts and put discipline and direction in their lives. We also dream of making Filipino martial artists get recognized internationally and get well-paid for it — at par with those of Hollywood and Asian action film superstars,” Soberano says.
Sarah Chang is the film’s major female martial arts star. She started training in Wushu at age 7 in her hometown of Virginia, USA under the tutelage of Jet Li’s former teammate, eventually becoming  a five-time USA National Wushu Team member.
Since then, however, Chang focused more on being an actress with martial arts skills, and not the other way around. Her latest works include The Crossing Hero, Moon River, Live N Scheme, The Monkey King and Wolf Warrior 2. She studied acting at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing and action stunts at the Jackie Chan Stunt Team training center in Tianjin. Her first foray into the film industry was an action choreography gig in Taiwan.
Barcelo is the film’s other female lead. Her character in Blood Hunters has a love interest portrayed by Ian Ignacio, an upcoming action star who grew up in San Francisco, USA, around the martial arts community. In the late ‘90s, del Rosario mentored him to start training in Taekwondo. He eventually started winning gold medals in competitions, including at the prestigious Carlos Palanca Taekwondo, becoming a member of the Philippine Team.