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Alex Faulkner ist ein ehemaliger MMA-Profikämpfer. Auf der Höhe seines Erfolgs hörte er auf und zog sich in ein zumindest halbwegs normales Leben zurück. Um dieses finanzieren zu können, eröffnete er sein eigenes Dojo – ein Fitnessstudio, in dem er Taekwondo unterrichtet. Während der aktuelle Weltmeister Arrio Gomez mit allen möglichen Tricks versucht, Alex zu einem Comeback und einem Fight gegen ihn zu bewegen, hat dieser kein Interesse daran, noch einmal in den Ring zu steigen. Ist er doch seiner Schülerin Samantha und ihrem Sohn Terry nähergekommen. Zum ersten Mal in seinem Leben kann Alex sich nun vorstellen, ein Familienvater zu werden. Das will Victor, Samanthas Exmann, allerdings um jeden Preis verhindern und hetzt seinen Kumpel, den riesigen Milan, auf Alex...
Avis de la communauté (6)
Australian martial arts excellence. The story is well known - the bad guys are bad, the good guy is good - and keeps no real surprises, but the fight scenes are intense and extremely well choreographed. A little bit to long, well acted drama with good fights for fans. Bren Foster: Director, Screenplay, Producer, Choreographer of Fight Scenes and main character. Multi talented. Keep an eye on him. If you love martial arts movies then don‘t miss this one.
It has many shortcomings but it excels where it counts: top notch fighting coreography and camera work, a good guy you want to root for, bad guys you badly want to see beaten, and simple but on point narration. It also helps that while the protagonist is a martial arts champion, he's not a super hero, so he has that everyman aura that main characters of such stories often lack. 10/10 because of the supermassive black holes of the plot and the lack of realism in some scenes and some choices of the characters, otherwise it'd be a 20/10.
Story maybe a 5.5 at best. Not even sure why they put in the fight sequence with the up coming challenger. But the fight sequences are some of the better ones for a long time. Oh yeah, of course they put the Asian guy at the end for the martial art part..... how typical is that.
The acting is decent, although I had my doubts at the beginning. The scene from ~00:31:25 - 00:32:30 was especially moving, and I have to give kudos to the cast at least for that one very touching scene. If you've never had your child go missing, you have absolutely no idea of the despair and terror that grips you and claws its way into your mind until you're reunited with them. The movie hits a slow crawl right around the halfway mark but it fortunately doesn't last too long before the pace picks up again. There are, of course, numerous plotholes that are big enough to drive a truck through but even with that, it's a decent action flick. (For one thing, I've never seen a kenpo stick that would shatter that easily. They would be pretty useless in actual fighting if they were that fragile.) The fight scenes were well choreographed although, to be frank, you DO need to disengage your brain and just "go with it" to get through the fight scenes, especially at the end. Now, for fans of martial arts movies, this film will certainly reward you with a VERY prolonged fight scene near the conclusion; that being said, though, you do have to be willing to just "go with it" or you'll be rolling your eyes and ready to turn it off. Yes, it's pretty ludicrous, but it's still a decent film. Not sure who this Bren Foster guy is but I wouldn't mind seeing him in some more action movies. He doesn't have an overwhelming screen presence but his acting is good and his martial arts moves are very watchable. All in all, I was very pleasantly surprised with this one and give it a recommendation if you can just turn loose and enjoy a good fight movie.
The movie has its flaws - it's a bit too long for that kind of movie (mostly because dramatic moments are over the top and far fetched, also too many filler moments) and some fight scenes are made just for the sake of fighting. But the fights themselves are great to watch and well choreographed. If you're a big fan of martial arts like myself, it's a pleasure to watch them. Can't even compare to cheap crap like "Last Kumite".