If you’ve been to this site for any amount of time then you know the work of Eric Jacobus, a stuntman, fight choreographer, all around good guy, and motherf***ing KRATOS. He’s heavily involved in mocap performance, and he’s damn good at it! Over the next few weeks I’m displaying my personal favorite shorts/films of my favorite martial artists/stuntmen. So let’s have some fun! 

Future Boss

This short may have been a sign of things to come as it feels a little like a video game, but Eric and Lorenz Hideyoshi Ruwwe do a great job here and the choreography is on point and a lot of fun. Eric’s best work is when comedy is involved, which is my way of saying that he would have been perfect alongside Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao during their late 80’s-early 90’s output. Tell me I’m wrong!

The Kicktionary

While not a narrative short, this is simply a great achievement in and of itself, and goodness, if you want to know what kind of kicks you’ll need to master in order to be a stunt person, well now you know. Over 200 different styles of kicks here, and Eric gives you a masterclass in the art!

Sensitive 70’s Turtleneck Tough Guys Parts 1 and 2

Now Eric is one of the many great performers in this series, and he’s just on point as Detective Frank Cox, a tough guy. But he’s sensitive and soft-hearted. Mostly. Both shorts are nothing short of hilarious, and the action is the right kind of 70’s cheese. One of my main reasons for including these is because…WE NEED PART 3! We need to find out what happens to Frank Cox. Will his mother get chance to eat his bourbon cookies? Or is this the end of the road? We need to know!

Rope-A-Dope 1 and 2

Now here we get to some of my absolute favs. The groundhog-day conceit of this series is just gold, and Eric, along with some familiar faces, delivers some excellent acting work to go along with the action, which is of course on point, and part 2 continues this and adds some new wrinkles that keeps things fresh. The final fights for both are better than many big Hollywood films, and the music is terrific! When it comes to these action shorts, this is as close to a gold standard as you can get! Oh yeah and the outtakes are truly worth watching. You’ll see how much time and effort went into these!

Blindsided: The Game

And we now come to this ambitious short film, an ode to characters like Zatoichi and other blind fighters throughout the history of action cinema ( I got crazy Blind Fury vibes here!) Clayton Barber does a hell of job directing this, and Eric is at the top of his game here, with his acting a highlight (you can see the work he put into his preparation during the outtakes). Pair great and varied fights using a variety of weapons, with great co-stars like the great Roger Yuan and David No, and you have what damn well should be a feature film, but what we get is exactly what it needs to be. Take some time and give this a watch.

What’s next for Eric?

This guy always keeps busy, thank goodness for us! He’s got the short film Pizza Time coming up, and he’s VERY well known for his youtube Tekken -move vids, and did you know he did the motion capture for some very familiar characters in Mortal Kombat 11: Johnny Cage, Raiden, Kano, Shao Khan, and more! Did I forget to repeat he’s also motherf***ing Kratos from God of War? Eric had jumped into the pre-vis game big time, and I feel before long he’s going to change the way action is shot on film and in games. Check out a video of some of that work:

Eric Jacobus is one of the best in the business, and I’m waiting to see whatever he’s cooking up next! Do you have a favorite not on this list? Is one of these vids your new favorite? Let me know in the comments!