Art Camacho's gritty story of redemption Half Past Dead 2, which stars professional wrestler Bill Goldberg and rapper Kurupt, hit stores last Tuesday. He joins us on this edition of the Your Video Store Shelf Podcast to talk about an assortment of topics. Like so many guests on this show, Camacho's journey into the world of filmmaking was not a typical one. Camacho began to learn martial arts as a teenager as a way of defending himself against the gangs of South East Los Angeles. He continued training into his adult years. Like so many accomplished martial artists in 1990's Los Angeles, Camacho was eventually asked to get the crap kicked out of him on film. He quickly learned the tricks of the trade of stunt work, and his workload increased. Soon enough he found himself being asked by PM Entertainment to not just do stunts, but choreograph the fight scenes in many of their movies. He has choreographed well over a hundred action scenes since then, and it was thanks to his success in that field that he found his way into directing. Half Past Dead 2 is Camacho's 14th film, with his earlier efforts including Gary Daniels' Recoil, Gangland, Sci-Fighter, and Point Doom. Topics include how he got attached to Half Past Dead 2, working with Andrew Stevens, the rhythm involved with fake fighting, his experience being PM Entertainment's fight choreographer, assembling almost a thousand extras in less than ten hours, the simple story of how he got into directing, his nervousness on his first day, his friendship with Don 'The Dragon' Wilson, bad kickboxing movies, blowing up cars, weak scripts, how long it takes him to appreciate his movies, how Andrew Dice Clay and Richard Grieco saved Point Doom, the eagerness of Angie Everhart, how great James Russo is, his very dangerous original plans for Confessions of a Pit Fighter, how he almost broke a gang truce, why we haven't seen that film, working with Flava Flav, getting his beat up in both Half Past Deads, and to close the show off, Art leaves me speechless. Fine show people. Get to listening!