justin chon stars in student film turbo

I just watched Turbo, a USC graduate thesis film by Jarrett Conaway shot for under $100,000 on one of those new-fangled Red One cameras: Watch Turbo (That Video Game Movie Shot on a Red One) Now.

The plot is fairly cheesy -- it's sort of a futuristic video game/fighting movie, and the villain is as ridiculously evil as it gets (think Johnny from The Karate Kid) -- but the film gets away with some amazing visual effects and fight choreography for a 20-minute student film. It's pretty impressive.

Turbo stars Justin Chon (the Asian kid from Twilight) and Ilram Choi (who also served as fight coordinator) as the guys you're rooting for. Here's a behind-the-scenes video on the production -- two years in the making, apparently. This ought to get somebody a job, right? For more about the film, go to the Turbo website here.