Back in 1999 when The Stunt People was just a website full of Hong Kong film reviews by one author (me), the internet was still basically a dirt mall. For action film fanatics / filmmakers, it was a frustrating time. Just as we were discovering that awesome Hong Kong cinema market, Youtube still hadn’t been invented, editing video required a $2,000+ machine (in 1999, 20 gigs of hard drive space cost $300), consumer videocameras sucked, consumer digital cameras sucked… basically it was very difficult to make a decent action film and put it online, and videos to fuel our inspirations were hard to come by. All we had for the longest time was the grace of the Project J site that hosted action clips from Jackie Chan films.

That’s when KWOON popped up.

KWOON made independent action films with sound effects, stunts, kung fu, everything I wanted to do. I reviewed two of their films Mummy Dearest and Collection Agency, brutalized them a little bit (“These don’t compare to Jackie Chan”, etc.), and received an email from them saying, “Thanks for the reviews. The critiques were right on! We love hearing feedback!” Guys making action films with no egos – That’s who I wanted to be.

While making Undercut and Contour, we needed some assistance during our growth spurt, and Todd Roy of KWOON donated server space, helped us set up film screenings and appearances at conventions, acted in both of the projects, and was instrumental in our acquiring the rights to Contour after it was finished.

Ten years ago KWOON made the first action web series and they’ll always be remembered for it. And we’re all hoping for that Episode 1 to come out some day.