With amazing work both on screen and behind the camera, Bren Foster has put together an excellent entry for stardom in the martial arts movie world.
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There's a lot of reasons to make your own movie. Some people simply love the act of making them. Other people strive to be storytellers. Others want to share their experience and be heard. In Aussie actor Bren Foster's case, I imagine he wanted to give himself a proper showcase for his martial arts prowess. I say that because after working his way through soap operas, some straight to video action fare, a basic cable show, and even voicing Mad Max in the 2015 video game, Foster wrote, directed and starred in a very straightforward martial arts drama called Life After Fighting. And I'm pleased to report, it rules.
The Setup
Foster plays Alex Faulkner, a former MMA fighter turned martial arts instructor that's made a solid name for himself in his post-fighting career. But when two of his students are kidnapped just outside his facility, Faulkner will do everything in his power to get them back safely.
I'll be the first to admit that martial arts movies are graded on a different set of criteria than your average movie or even your average action movie. It doesn't hurt if your story has a solid emotional baseline, but if your fighting is ass, it won't play. The flip flop of that is that the story can be very weak or bare bones and it doesn't matter if the fights rip.
One of the big reasons I like this movie so much is how it justifies so many martial art movie standard scenes via the plot. The "challenge fight" is a great example. There's a long history of some scuzzy dudes showing up to the dojo to either spy on or challenge the master. In kung-fu movies this is usually a means of establishing dominance or making a name for themselves. So putting that in what is, for all intents and purposes, a grounded drama and not a period drama, might seem off.
That is until you realize that the goons were sent by a jealous ex of the woman Faulker is seeing and that he paid them to try and mess our hero up. Small justification but it allows the audience to accept the premise of the scene. Hell it even circles back later.
That is until you realize that the goons were sent by a jealous ex of the woman Faulker is seeing and that he paid them to try and mess our hero up. Small justification but it allows the audience to accept the premise of the scene. Hell it even circles back later.
Likewise, this is one of the best uses of what I can only describe as easy action movie motivation. Kidnapped kids or loved ones is an action movie standard. It's the entire baseline for the Taken franchise or any other "you messed with the wrong man" type of movies. And it can feel forced and invite questions like...why aren't the police being brought in.
Life After Fighting pretty intentionally, makes all of these motivations personal and makes it clear why cops are off the table (minus your bog standard corruption).
So that's well and good but what about the fighting?
Life After Fighting pretty intentionally, makes all of these motivations personal and makes it clear why cops are off the table (minus your bog standard corruption).
So that's well and good but what about the fighting?
Oh the fighting whips ass.
I'll be the first to admit that mixed martial arts fights, especially in movies, aren't always my thing. I get that there's a lot of power and skill that goes into jockeying for position on the ground or going for a hold. But most of the time it's very boring compared to trading punches and kicks.
Foster and company solve that problem in two ways. The first is a dynamic camera. Now I've complained about rapid editing in action scenes about as long as I've been doing this. At this point I'm preaching to the choir. But camera motion? That can work if done right. In particular moving the camera to emphasize the feel of a takedown or what flipping into a choke position means for the fight. There's a dynamic shift that's captured through the camera.
The second way is what I like to call the "highlight reel" moments. These are big with the martial arts crowd, but these are the moves or stunts that require a ton of skill to pull off, are absolutely impractical in a real fight...and no one cares because they look dope on screen. Donnie Yen's signature double kick, Scott Adkins spin to flip kick. Any of Tony Jaa's spinning flying knees. Those kick ass. And Foster and his team put on a parade of highlight reel moves including in the judo centric sequences so we can to dudes get involuntarily flipped before being smashed through a door or into the ground. That's the good stuff there.
And these same two techniques, that dynamic camera and highlight reel moments, don't hurt the more traditional sparring either. Foster is clearly very skilled and also understand fight dynamics. As fun as it is to see your hero tear through a bunch of dudes, it works best when each little bout in the big bout feels different. So he approaches each opponent differently, often because of the weapons they do or don't have. Guy has knife, we're going to use grappling and try to disarm them before throwing them down stairs. Guy picks up a pole. Dodge until you can get a comparable weapon and then bow staff his ass. It feels natural.
Also in a move, I legit haven't seen in a movie like this...the henchmen get up. It's such a small detail but I love it so much because folks with a basic understanding of human anatomy know that cooly knocking someone out for an extended period of time isn't a thing. They're gonna be able to move and get up, maybe with some pain, pretty soon, even if you through them through a window. So if we're all operating like Terminators in terms of pain threshold, this means the final run gets progressively more brutal as Faulkner and his opponents get more desperate.
It's action movie silliness, but it's some of the best I've seen in some time.
The Verdict: Hopefully The Start of Something
With amazing work both on screen and behind the camera, Bren Foster has put together an excellent entry for stardom in the martial arts movie world. 8/10
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