Life After Fighting is the Best Martial Arts Movie You Haven't Seen

Life After Fighting is a movie so obscure that I'm the one who created the Wikipedia page for it not long before writing this. As far as Wikipedia pages go, it could use some work. Anyway, last month I wrote about how The Raid found success by going light on story and heavy on its amazing fight choreography. If Gareth Evans had decided to go a different direction and focus more on adding some high drama, the result might have looked a little something like Life After Fighting.

The brainchild of Australian actor and martial artist Bren Foster, this movie was Foster's attempt to reach beyond the limitations of his previous roles. Foster drew inspiration from The Raid when filming the fights for his own movie. That influence is hard to miss, but he also wanted his movie to have more depth. It's an admirable instinct, but from my perspective Foster's writing chops were not as good as his karate chops. Don't get me wrong, I've seen plenty of successful action films with much worse scripts. But the screenplay for Life After Fighting pulled this movie down rather than lifting it up.

As the war on drugs has proven to be little more than a racist scheme of mass incarceration and systemic oppression, the drug dealer has been replaced by the child trafficker as the go-to shallow choice for movie bag guys. And that is exactly the choice made here. Luke Ford gives a solid performance as the villain, Victor Dimov, but the character is a walking cliché with no redeeming or even interesting qualities. Just another wife-abusing, child-trafficking monster with no dimensions.

I thought Annabelle Stephenson's performance is probably the strongest of the film, but I feel like her character could have been given a lot more to do other than agonize over her missing children. She works for Foster's hero, Alex Faulkner, at his martial arts school. Surely this means she has some training and could handle herself, so why not give her some agency and let her be part of the fighting? Stephenson likely doesn't have any martial arts training, which could be the reason for this, but it would have been a better story had she been more involved in the action. On the bright side, Cassie Howarth, Faulkner's love interest, played by Samantha Hathaway, does get to defend herself admirably at one point, despite not having any training. I found that scene refreshing for this kind of film.

Then there's a whole pointless subplot about another fighter named Arrio Gomez, played by Eddie Arrazola, who tries to taunt Faulkner into coming out of retirement to fight him. It begins early on and it seems like they are setting up for a Rocky III type of plot, but it doesn't really go anywhere. The two eventually have a confrontation, which makes for a great fight, but it doesn't fit at all with the rest of the film. This felt like Foster wrote a part for Arrazola just because they were pals or something, which is likely, because they were in The Last Ship TV series together.

The script has a lot of issues like these, but Life After Fighting still manages to do its duty as a good martial arts film. It shines where it counts the most for this kind of movie, which is the fight choreography. Foster's skill and passion for the art form are apparent any time anyone is throwing hands. With mostly full and medium shots you get to see the action unobstructed, with limited and well-placed cuts; you never feel like the camera is trying to hide anything. And while there's plenty of flashy moves there are also a lot of legit MMA moves that make the fights feel grounded.

As I am writing this, Life After Fighting hasn't yet earned back its meager $350k budget, at least according to IMDb. That's a shame because it is a great showcase for Foster's abilities as a martial artist and fight choreographer. He's not the greatest actor but he's clearly capable of producing a solid action film. I'd love to see what he could do with a better script. Whatever comes next for Bren Foster, Life After Fighting is guaranteed to become a cult hit.