Thousand Pounds Action Company was an independent company, based out of Los Angeles, California, co-created by Christopher C. Cowan, Vonzell Carter and Darren Bailey in 2010, which produced short action films that include an Asian martial arts sensibility, as well as visual effects. The team consisted of various actors, stunt performers, and fight choreographers, all who have a martial arts background. Chris Cowan served as director, editor, director of photography and lead visual effects artist. It is stated on the company's Facebook page, "We hope to gain investments for our own projects and to be available to help the needs of other filmmakers and artists. We also have committed to continue making exciting adaptive and original films."
As stated in an interview with Extrahype.com, the name Thousand Pounds "comes from a Taijiquan proverb which states that four ounces of force is enough to move a thousand pounds." [1]
With millions of views on multiple videos, and a very high LIKE percentage, the company received global recognition on YouTube, namely for their anime and video game adaptations to a live-action format. Most notably of these are the videos based on Naruto: Shippuden and Capcom's Street Fighter franchise. Their videos have been featured on the main websites of Capcom [2] and Kotaku, [3] among others.
After the release of a 2013 crowdfunded TV pilot, Clandestine, the company disbanded.
Members Christopher C. Cowan, Haile Lee and contributing writer Lex Randleman went on to form a similar group called Epic Rival, whose videos featured a number of Thousand Pounds team members and collaborators. One of Epic Rival's films was a direct sequel to Thousand Pounds' Naruto Shippuden fan film, entitled Naruto Shippuden: Dance of War.
Omitted are the group's trailers, concepts, tests and training videos.