2013 Recapped

Date: 31 Dec, New Years Eve

Location: 6.05pm, Train to Mascot 

It's been an epic year filled with loads of projects to keep me going. We started things off with Roger Corman's Hollywood in China movie "Fist of A Dragon"

Roger Corman's Fist of the Dragon

until the end of January. A great project which forged Dong Tam Martial Arts into bigger directions of screen fighting and action. It was also my first time action acting on a project beyond short films as I played killer (lesbian?) assassin "Zhen". 

Heading back home I landed myself on the "B+ Agents of Change" (Feb-Aug) hepatitis b project with Cancer Council and ICE. I ended off producing/directing/ acting in "Change Of Our Lives", which then got a Hoyts Cinema screening in August. 

In the meantime, my indie girl-on-girl action flick "Hit Girls" (1) (2) was officially selected for the 2013 Action on Film Festival (Los Angeles), which Trung and I decided to fly over to the states to attend. 

During that time we had a very brief encounter with another project, which of course, promised the world but ends up being very Z-grade. Check "The Gathering" here. 

Other highlights of the trip is a meeting with the legendary Roger Corman. He may be veering to his 90s but this man has amazing charismatic spark. That one meet with him gave me more fuel to continue my indie filmmaker plight. 

My travels then took me to Vietnam, where I did a bit of location scouting, a meet up with fellow brother (former Digital Series member) Quan Tran, whom I'm so proud of his development so far, and a meet with Johnny Minh Tri Nguyen to get a better understanding of Vietnam's media landscape. 

Trung and I then hopped over to Hong Kong to be acquainted with film director; Antony Szeto as well as HK actress Juju Chan. 

In Sept, we came back to Australia and straight to Melbourne where the Dong Tam Martial Arts Team collaborated on a stem cell awareness campaign video directed by Corrie Chen called "Zero To Hero". 

From October-November, the same team as well has my favorite pals in filmmaking; Adrian Castro and Justin Gong worked on another YouTube video titled as "Enter The Dojo 2". During this time, short film "Gaffa" (behind the scenes here) won the Hoyts Audience Choice Awards at the 2013 Joyhouse a Film Festival. 

Unexpectedly, I became the Vice-President (External Affairs) for the Vietnamese Community of Australia (NSW Chapter) as the team running the elections (we call ourselves "Tuong Lai = Future") won. I was quite surprised but at the same time ecstatic to be hanging out with such a great team for 2013-2015. Being a part of the VCA will get me closer to my "Vietnameseness" and my culture. 

November-December seems like the highlight of my year though. I did less, stressed less and started to focus. With the help of Thien Nguyen from Hard Personal Training (HPT) I was able to drop 7 kilos and start to get into shape again. We've even started a new initiative called "Fight Club" which will kick off the new year on the 9th @ Dong Tam Martial Arts Centre. 

Oh yeah... I forgot to mention that I had the chance to MC about 15 weddings, Sydney predominately and a couple in Melbourne & Brisbane. I found an MC mentor; Lee Vu who I've collaborated over the NSW Bushfire Appeal as well as the Phillipines Haiyan Appeal.  

All in all; I'm pretty content with 2013. I know this is only the beginning and 2014 will be another year that will take me to new heights as long as I'm committed. The great thing is, I'm surrounded by an amazing team who are experts in their own fields, they are generous with their time, skills as well as very open minded about the future. 

So what's in store for 2014? I'm taking a step back and working more in the physical realm. I'm naturally a "mental" kind-of-person, good at organising and a strategic thinker. But 2014, I'm going back to the old school of solid training in strength, martial arts, fight skills etc... Definitely looking after this vessel of a body of mind and eating right. I think the projects will naturally follow, and 2014 I envision more international work so I better start training for it. 

Networking more? Nope. Not my thing. I think of just sticking to my abilities and my team's abilities to go places.

Jan-April, 2014? I don't really want to think about it. Fight choreography developments scheduled on the 3rd & 4th, 4th night flying out to Malaysia, coming back on the 8th for the opening of Fight Club, more fight developments then two solid weeks working for AFTRS on their guerrilla filmmaking program as well as stage combat. Then on the 26th of Jan, I will be inducted onto the ABC TV series as an Associate Producer for "Maximum Choppage" and that project will take me to Mid April. Post April I envision that my filmic adventures can take me overseas. A few things potentially in the pipeline so fingers crossed for that. 

Okies... Signing out for now. I promise to blog more in 2014!