Life After Fighting

A new face in the action circus for me and an extremely likeable one at that. Where has this Bren Foster been all these years?

As a nostalgic caress, there is the cosy fighting school setting, which is the central element in almost every classic Eastern. But here we get more than the 10,000th blockbuster of the same content, and for the astonishing mini-budget of 350,000 Australian dollars. Our leading actor is also the director and attempts the difficult balancing act between martial arts action, thriller and drama. If I now add that this is spread over 125 minutes, most people will wave goodbye. Wait a minute! I don't want to claim that everything is perfectly rounded and that there aren't any long stretches, but overall Life After Fighting works surprisingly well. Potential audiences probably won't need the tragic core story, but it does give the brutal finale in particular a very special emotional depth. Speaking of the finale, wow, 40 minutes of a real martial arts highlight. More films please, Mr Foster!

Before I decided to watch Life After Fighting, I read some of the reviews here on the site. I didn't know anything about Bren Foster, so I didn't know what to expect, but I must say, he is awesome, and I am definitely going to watch some of his other movies.

Some reviewers called it a B-movie with fight scenes like an A-movie, and I can only agree. This film truly has some spectacular fight scenes with lots of cool kicks. I also thought the story and acting were pretty decent. Although the characters made some stupid decisions at times, I wasn't bored at any point or to annoyed with it. All in all, a very successful film.

With a tiny budget of 350 000 Australian dollars Bren Foster managed to create one of the best (if not the best) fight sequences in movie history! A criminally underrated screen fighter, fight choreographer, athlete and martial arts master that holds black belts in 5 disciplines (taekwondo, hapkido, brazilian jiu-jitsu, haidong gumdo, hwarangdo) and world champion gold medals in taekwondo and karate!

Was EYE ever surprised by this movie...i had another one ready for when i would delete THIS one, after watching for, i thought, fifteen or twenty minutes. TOPS. But by that time i already knew that this was not just some shallow storytelling bolstered by the martial arts angle...no. There was a good story, as well... but the martial arts scenes were, in my opinion, very well done, as well...and, since a lot of the other reviewers are saying the same, i'm not hesitating to say it, as well... but, again, there's another story going on that's very worthwhile... i'm thinking that this guy...main character...director...has a future in the business...i can't imagine that this movie had a high budget... and i HOPE that if he DOES get his hands on some money beCAUSE of how well this movie does(and it SHOULD do well...kind of a Rocky, in its own right), that he will not lose perspective and keep it from going over the top... but he HAS to have discipline to get to where he is NOW...so i'm not all that worried that this would happen... so someone throw some money at this guy and let's see what ELSE he can do... by the way...just so you don't wonder...i live in the Netherlands and am in no WAY affiliated with him/the production...except, now, as a fan...i really WAS surprised... oh. And it WASn't 'flawless'...i thought the last scene...well...it COULD've been shorter if he'd done what EYE would've done in that situation...but i won't say anything else because i don't do spoilers...but i understand why he chose to do it the way he did... i still enjoyed it, otherwise... i came back to edit this...a six point TWO rating? How did THAT happen...a SEVEN i could tolerate but most of the review are at LEAST a seven...so what's up with THIS??? Do NOT be discouraged from seeing this movie if the subject seems interesting...it's got the moves and THEN some...

Well after watching the trailer I was not going to bother to watch it as it looked awful .

But I went against my gut feeling and settled down to watch.

I was pretty surprised to be honest, the fight scenes were well choreographed, the acting and story were so so.. The movie how ever did seem to be a little long with scenes that were not needed.

The story was a little bit odd at times and not enough character backgrounds.

But if all you are after is a Friday night action movie with some good fights and a movie that's not bad but not great, then this movie will be up your street and worth watching.

I have now re named bren foster as the Australian Scott Adkins.