Life After Fighting

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.

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...

Not that long ago i saw the trailer for this movie and remembered the lead actor from a movie i saw with Steven Seagal call Force of Execution about 10 years ago or so. He was very solid in it in term of fighting but for whatever reason, its like he never really did anything more when it comes to Martial Arts? After watching his IMDB resume it seem he spent lots of years in recurring roles in TV shows so that could explain.

Fast forward many years later and this one finally get release, so i give it a rent on Xbox (i couldn't buy it even if i wanted to for whatever reason, rental only) and this really surprised the heck out of me.

I mean the trailer did showed some good fight sequences but with DTV martial arts flick you never know. But i was actually blown away.

The movie has a rather surprisingly long run time for the genre at 2h, but it want to establish the characters well so you feel for them. It still manage to insert enough fight scenes and training scenes in that first and second act that i never felt bored or that it moved too slow.

Once you get in the third act tough is where the show start. BRUTAL fight scenes, fast pace, great choreographies. I read in some other reviews that there was too much "shaky cams" but i think the guy may have had a few beers too much because i didn't notice much shaky cams at all. Yes sometimes the camera follow the action and its not completely steady but its not "shaky" at all.

Story touch on some hard subject and without reinventing anything, it is solid enough to be a base for the action show.

Bren Foster not only star in it, but also directed and written it, so it was really a passion project for him and he succeeded at making a very good modern day Martial Art movie mixing both old school kicks and flips with a more grounded BJJ style of modern MMA.

Other than Scott Adkins its been pretty dry outside of Asia when it comes to this genre. You got Michael Jai White putting one out here and here, but for some reasons he appears often as a guest star in non-martial art movies (i assume he don't want to be type casted) and when he do put one, they not always exactly great. Some are very low budget and it show.

I don't know how big was the budget for Life After Fighting, but even tough there is nothing extremely expensive in it (explosions, car chases or big action set piece), everything they done especially the climax really look great and its very well directed when it comes to the fights.

If i must mention a negative, i would say Bren Foster altough an amazing on screen fighter, lack a bit in term of acting when it comes to emotions, but then again you don't watch a movie like this for academy award type of actings. It was fine enough.

Overall this is one i will like to add to my physical collection so hopefully i can get at least a DVD at some point. And i do hope Mr Foster make more martial arts movie in the futur.

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.

Melodrama. Action. More melodrama. More action. Rinse and repeat. Truth is, this has been the formulaic approach to this genre of film for the last 20 years or so. To make a fight film stand out, to make it POP, there has to be something unusual, something different. And LIFE AFTER FIGHTING 2024 offers that. The melodrama is still ... melodrama. But the action scenes are on fire. In fact, when the action starts, this reviewer gets a vibe not felt since BILLY JACK 1971, the original, and that is high praise. ((Don't forget to check out WARRIOR 2011 and KISS OF THE DRAGON 2001 on my list of all-time greats, if you have not done so already. Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." See my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))