Canary Island Apprentice Assassins

Canary Island Apprentice Assassins

Bruce Von Stiers

There is this assassin. Well, actually, she is an apprentice assassin. While she might have had sufficient training, she is still somewhat wet behind the ears.

This slightly green killer is Kaylee. She was the main character of the short film, The Assassin's Apprentice.

There is a second film showcasing the talents of Kaylee. Whereas the first film took place in Los Angeles, this film features locations in the Canary Islands. The title of this new film is The Assassin's Apprentice 2: Silbadores of the Canary Islands.

Kaylee is doing a beach thing when she's called in to work. It seems there is imminent danger to a secret project. This project is a group of people training drones. But foreign agents have been deployed to stop and destroy the project.

Kaylee finds out from her boss, Roy, that there is an assassin named Sork and his apprentice, Karla, who are trying to access the training area. They have a special cloaking device that will allow them to be undetectable. And they have swarm bots that will seek out and destroy not only the drones, but the people training the drones.

Kaylee's job is to intercept Sork and Karla and stop them from completing their mission.

There are a couple of things that I really liked about the film. Some of the filming was done in outlying locations around Los Angeles and on a soundstage. But for the rest of it, there was amazing footage of locations in the Canary Islands.

The second thing I liked about the film was a couple of nerdy tech items. The swarm bots were really cool looking up close. And there is a virtual heads-up display in a motorcycle helmet that Kaylee wears in a couple of scenes that wasn't too bad. There was also this hologram dude that is projected to Kaylee via a drone. I know, holograms have been overdone. But it was still not too bad.

Having mentioned special effects items, I've got to say that Sork's cloaking thing was a bit underwhelming. There was a staff that projected an invisibility bubble. I felt that the effects could have been a little better. But on the flip side, there was some terrific virtual FX footage of mountainous areas of one of the islands.

The film was directed by Russell Emanuel and put together by Executive Producer Paul Hichman and his production company, Innomagic Productions. Emanuel was also responsible for the first film in this series, The Assassin's Apprentice. He also directed the feature films Chasing The Green and American Wisper.

Paul Hickman was the screenwriter for the film. He has been the producer for several short and feature films. The film was edited by Trevor Mayes. He has directed several films and is now doing visual effects work along with directing and editing. The director of photography was Scotty Baker, who also directed the feature film 5th Passenger.

Other behind the camera people included producers Ryan T. Husk and Howard Nash. Vasilis Milesis provided the original score for the film. The production design was done by Gladys Rodriguez. Robert Poe was the art director, Lucy Song was the costume designer and Alisha L. Barijounas was the key makeup artist.

Tarah Paige reprised the role of Kaylee. She is a stunt performer as well as an actor. Anna Camp and Reese Witherspoon are just two of the many actors that Tarah has stunt doubled for. And she has over forty screen credits as an actor.

The first film featured two Star Trek alum, Robert Picardo and Marina Sirtis. This film also features Star Trek alum. Armin Shimerman played Roy. He was Quark on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and has over two hundred screen credits. Gary Graham was Sork. He had a recurring role on Star Trek: Enterprise and starred on Alien Nation. Sean Kenney played the armorer who suits Kaylee up. He played Christopher Pike in several episodes of the original Star Trek. Another actor in the film who appeared in a Star Trek show was Tracee Cocco.

Katherine Munroe was the other assassin apprentice, Karla. She starred in the films Possession Diaries and Desperate Measures. Andrea Kinsky was Tarah Paige's double. She has stunt doubled for Piper Perabo and Mena Suvari.

Aside from co-producing the film, Ryan T. Husk played the hologram. Bill Victor Arucan, Danika Gould, Eric David Brown, John Harlan Brady, Albert Herrera and Ted Heim had minor roles in the film. There was also Ed Mower, Justin Wilson and Q Fortier. Malissa Longo and Jennifer Durst appeared in this film, as well as the first one.

There was a cool song, Catch Me Before Midnight by Alice Underground, that was playing during the film's ending credits.

Earlier I had mentioned that this film was part of a series. Russell Emanuel has envisioned these two films to be elements of a trilogy of feature films about the exploits of the assassin's apprentice, Kaylee.

I liked this film, both for the beautiful island scenery and the plot. But I had to research exactly what silabores are. It seems that silbadore is Spanish for whistler or one who whistles. This fits in great with the plot device of training drones with whistling commands. The acting was not bad and, as I mentioned earlier, some of the special effects were really good.

The film has already won several awards at film festivals, including Best Sci-Fi at the Nicomedia Film Awards. It is an official selection for the upcoming NOVA Fest and the 2024 Europa Film Festival in Barcelona, Spain.

The official website for the film is www.TAAMovie.com . There is a Facebook page for The Assassin's Apprentice at https://www.facebook.com/taamovie/ . You can also visit Russ Emanuel's production website for additional information at https://www.russem.com/

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