Available on digital now, Life After Fighting, from Bren Foster, is an excellent new action revenge thriller. Our review praised the film for its emotional core as well as its ‘phenomenal fight sequences.’ The plot sees martial arts instructor Alex (played by Foster) confronted with the disappearance of two of his students, leading him into a direct confrontation with a group of international child traffickers.
Life After Fighting made a real impression on this reviewer and after reaching out to Bren, we settled down to discuss the project in greater detail.
How long did it take you from starting to write the script, through to storyboards, pre-viz, choreo etc. to actually be ready to start filming Life After Fighting?
I would probably say close to a year, but once we made the decision to push ahead and just do it, everything seemed to fall into place and move quickly.
Had you always planned to wear ALL the hats or was it more of a necessity?
Initially I didn’t plan on directing until multiple people including other directors insisted that it should be me, so I was reluctant at first but soon realised I had an insight and vision that was true to the script. Producing was definitely out of necessity, I had to pull and ask for a lot of favours but I was blessed to have so many supportive people around me, especially from my martial arts school. Writing, acting and action design were always planned.
And do you have a favourite role (acting, writing, directing, choreo, producing)?
I love acting and the creation of action choreography/stunts. I do love the writing process as there are no limits to my imagination – I like being limitless, lol. Those are definitely favourites. Directing in terms of working with actors – I love. I am also an acting teacher so directing actors within the imaginary circumstances of plays or scenes is definitely a passion. But working with a DOP to create the visual story was something that really grew on me through the process of making Life After Fighting. So directing is something I can see becoming a favourite the more I do it.
Producing was something I really led the way with in pre-production. I pushed a lot; pushed for actors I wanted , locations, main parts of the key crew. But when we got into principal photography I had to step away a little and focus on acting and directing. But I discovered that even though it may not be my favourite thing, I can certainly get it done and do enjoy it.
Looking at the cast and crew listings, it seems Life After Fighting was a real family affair. What was it like to have your real-life kids playing such important and heavy roles and did you approach direction as a director, as their father or a mix of both?
It was great having my children in roles and working with them. They held themselves professionally and took great pride in their work. I was more the director with them on set, to keep things professional and they all honoured that. And they all put in the work to prepare for the roles.
The final showdown inside the school choreography and camera angles/movement are absolutely spot on. I know there will be film nerds like myself looking for the hidden cuts and edits, so without giving too much away, how many days did that take to shoot?
It’s funny how the time frames get a little foggy for me, but we originally scheduled two weeks (5 day weeks I should add) and I got injured in the second week, so we had to come back and do the second week after I recovered so I’d say probably closer to 2 and a half weeks.
Indie action has always had a core fan-base but it takes the likes of John Wick, Mission Impossible and Mad Max amongst other studio productions to be Box Office hits in this day and age. Do you think this will always be the case or similarly with horror, are lower-budget action movies going to start to make the execs sit up and take notice?
I definitely think there needs to be a comeback and appreciation for the REAL DOING, no CGI, not full of doubles. Once upon a time action movies were lead by those who could really do it, there is an authenticity about “the real doing”, and that’s what acting is – it’s authentically doing through character, physicality and action shouldn’t be separate from acting, they need to be amalgamated. So, yes I hope studio execs can notice the authenticity and see that there is an audience who appreciate the real doing in most indie action films.
I think the main problem in regard to box office success with indie action is people watching on pirate sites and not supporting indie films by watching through legitimate avenues. If that part changes, indie films will have a greater chance of box office success.
Almost everyone has heard of the ‘action heroes’ of the 80s whether they watched the movies or not. Sure the likes of Arnie, Stallone and Jean-Claude Van Damme are still doing their thing but in your opinion, who are their latter day counterparts that we’ll be talking about in the next ten years or so as the heroes of the 2000s onwards?
We have a few. We have Scott Adkins, Michael Jai White, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais. But unfortunately the climate of the film industry has changed since Stallone, JCVD, Arnie etc.had their day, and today’s counterparts don’t get the same budgets which is a shame.
Life After Fighting is available to watch now on digital platforms.
