Bullet Points: Life After Fighting
I had been seeing a lot of Life After Fighting themed posts on social media recently and it sounded like a movie that would be right up my alley. So it was really no surprise when I sat down this past weekend to check out Life After Fighting and it should be even less of a surprise that I am now going to write about it…
- As Advertised: Right from the start the movie lives up to its title, as we see former world champion martial artist, Alex Faulkner (Bren Foster, Infini), now operating a martial arts school and business is good. Life after fighting seems pretty good for Alex… but we know that’s going to have to change. First there’s the current world champion, Arrio Gomez, who is trying to get Alex to come out of retirement to fight him… then there’s some less obvious trouble that walks right into Alex’s life in the form of Samantha (Cassie Howarth) and her young son, Terry. Samantha is at the school to sign Terry up for some classes and ends up signing up for some private lessons for herself. And it is after that first private lesson that we meet Samantha’s ex-husband, Victor (Luke Ford, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor), who despite being divorced from Samantha for years, he still hasn’t let go.
- That Escalated Quickly: When Alex and Samantha’s relationship goes from professional to personal, creepy ass Victor is watching from afar. So it is really no surprise when Victor and his big goon of a friend show up at Alex’s school looking for trouble with Victor accusing Alex of being a homewrecker… Alex asks them to take the conversation outside where Alex schools Victor’s friend… A bit later, two ringers sign up for a beginner’s class and start trouble with actual beginners. When Alex asks the troublemakers to leave and they don’t comply, the beginner’s class gets a live demonstration of just how bad ass their teacher is… But these incidents seem minor compared to what happens next… two of Alex’s young students are abducted from the parking lot including Violet, the daughter of Alex’s business partner/cousin Julie (played by Bren’s real life daughter). Weeks pass and the girls are not found… things are looking pretty bleak.
- Total Non-Stop Action: It turns out Violet’s abduction was not an isolated incident. Violet was the target of some international child traffickers… fortunately for Violet, her friend Lainey and six other girls, Samantha finds them and is able to get a message to Alex before she too becomes a captive… Alex ends up saving the day after plenty of tension is built up, but that’s not the end of the movie. Now Alex has to deal with the child traffickers at his school and we get one brutal martial arts battle after the next as Alex uses all his fighting skills and in some cases whatever he can get his hands on (like a door knob) to take out one masked baddie after the next before the inevitable final showdown with the head of the ring. The martial arts mayhem in Life After Fighting is of the highest caliber and my hat goes off to all the talented individuals who brought that action to life on the screen.
Life After Fighting is exactly the type of movie we need more of in 2024 and beyond. Having lived through the 90s boom of martial artist after martial artist getting into the world of direct to video action movies, one can’t help but wonder what happened to the martial artist to action star pipeline? Have they all gone the MMA route? Are they out there and movie producers are looking elsewhere and don’t see any money in the action genre? Bren Foster proves there are martial artists/action stars out there who can still make a classic martial arts actioner for the modern audience. And Foster’s case he was all in… as he was not only the star, he also wrote and directed the film!
My only complaint about Life After Fighting would be the runtime and that’s a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things. Still you could have saved some of that stuff for the sequel Bren, because I certainly hope Life After Fighting was not the last Bren Foster action flick we are treated to. Now before any of you can complain that this review is too long, I’ll wrap it up by telling you that Life After Fighting is now available on VOD and Digital!
