LIFE AFTER FIGHTING (Australia, 2024) with Andy Gorham

Strewth mate, this episode we're joined by Furthest Away Guest So Far, action movie fan extraordinaire Andy Gorham to talk Bren Foster's Aussie breakout beatdown bonanza Life After Fighting. Spoilers: IT RIPS.
>> LIFE AFTER FIGHTING trailer <<

There's also time to take a swing at The Lockdown, The Twilight Samurai, The Mission and lots of pre-waffle...

All the other good stuff is here:  simonfeilder.com
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Andy is on twitter: https://x.com/andrewmgorham
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Chapters

• 0:34 INTRO and other movies
• 27:29 LIFE AFTER FIGHTING
• 1:23:02 ACTION REPLAY
• 1:28:10 OUTRO

Transcript

0:00

[MUSIC] Welcome to Dodge This, Action Movies Unleashed. We are, you're not going to believe this, into season four of these completely, illogically numbered and measured seasons. I make the rules, it's season four. We're doing a short run up to Christmas, 2024. I just like the idea that someone in the future is listening to this in like 2027 and they're like,"Man, 2024, what a year." Anyway, hey, we got a couple of very exciting things happening on this episode. First of all, we're talking about the Australian movie, Life After Fighting. The one man wrecking crew, I don't want to use the word, "Vality Project," but passion project is the word I'm after, of Australian actor, hunk and martial artist, Bren Foster. That's the first Australian movie we have featured on this podcast. And secondly, I think the guest from the furthest away from me geographically, it's a fairly tenuous second medal, but I like to, I want to build the guests up. His name is Andy, and I'm quoting from his Twitter bio, Action Movie Guy Gorham. Welcome, Andy.- Good morning, Simon, thank you for having me. And you actually said my last name correct. Good job. - Really?- I get Gorham, I get Gorman. How the hell do you get Gorman out of that? I have no idea, but it happens. Or Gorham, and they like spell it back to me, G-O-R-U-U-M, I was like, W, okay, interesting.- Wow, nice. Well, I, thank you.- Are this our second farthest away?- No, literal geographically, I mean--- Nobody will beat me, I'm sure.- I haven't typed into Google Maps, but I feel like that is pretty far. I'll also--- We gotta be on the opposite side of the world right now. I think we're good. - 100% for the uninitiated listener. Hello, my name's Simon Fielder, and I am an English man by birthright.(laughing) And I stake my claim, but currently located in Mumbai, India. And Andy is located in, is it Kalamazoo?- Kalamazoo, Michigan, yes.- That can't be a real place.- It is, that's the place. - That's not a real place. That's like a movie place. - It's a real place, trust me. Trust me, when I first moved here, I was like, there's no way this is a real place.(laughing)- Andy's in the basement of a house in Kalamazoo. He's literally definitely a green screen. He's around the corner, I don't know, possibly in the same building as me. Nobody knows, they can't see it, it's a podcast. They used to make in the olden days before they were basically video interview shows on YouTube. Tell me you're old without telling me you're old. Anyway, Andy is someone I've never met in real life. We were just discussing this prior to pressing record. It's a very exciting world that we live in, where podcasts don't always, apart from in the aforementioned same room video podcasts, brackets, it's just an interview, mate, it's not a podcast, on YouTube. But thanks to the beauty of technology, this podcast has only once in its history been in the same room. And so that sort of means, I mean, I could just talk to people all over the world. I absolutely love it. And Andy is someone who, the self-appointed action movie guy, I have to say, is that, how did that come about? I was on a different podcast. It's a now defunct podcast called Cobwebs. And the host, Dan, he now does an excellent YouTube channel. So if you really love horror movies and like DVD and Blu-ray collecting, follow him over there. It's a really great channel, amazing guy. But I jokingly said, I meant to say I'm un-action guy. And I said the action guy. And he jumped on that and didn't let me live it down. So I said, you know what? I'm just gonna go with it. So I changed my bio and it's been the same since. I don't think I'll ever change it again.- Fair play. And prior to that day, you'd never watched an action movie. You were like, she's now got a-- Never watched a movie, no, you never know.- I've got to see all of them.- 40 years on this planet, no, never watching.- Well, between that and the fact that you're presuming it's a real background, is shelves full of DVDs. It feels like you're fully qualified to be a guest on this show. So thanks so much for having me.- Sure, I mean, I like to set the bar low. So yeah, I'm perfectly fine being qualified to barely step over something. That's perfect for me.- Fingers crossed. Also in your Twitter bio, it says, no guilty pleasures, only shameless enthusiasm. And having heard you on other podcasts, that's something that made me reach out and say, hey, he would be a great guest. Because as a comedian, I think I default to like picking things apart a little bit. And you know, sometimes you could argue too much. So I think it's a good combo to have someone to combat that with like, yeah, but you know what mate? And my friend Matthew, who used to be the co-host of this podcast all the time, we sort of had this mantra of like, just getting a movie made is like borderline impossible, right? But I mean, if the podcast was just like, you got a movie made, it would be pretty boring podcast. So, you know, I think there's gotta be some give and take there. But I think this movie in particular is a great one to have the shameless enthusiasm for, you know. So we'll get there in two seconds. Before we do that, I'd love to like paint the background of who Andy Gorham is by asking you, what have you seen recently that is not life after fighting, that is worthy of a recommend or something that, you know, just made its presence known, got over three stars on letterboxed. I'll take any of those.- Oh sure. Well, in that case, you don't wanna talk to me'cause I'm a very liberal reviewer and score.- That is true.- Having my stuff, I'm just like, just getting it made might be two and a half, three stars for me.- Round it up to five.- Yes. Okay, recently I rewatched, oh, I'm gonna get the year wrong, but I rewatched the "Haraoke Sonata" classic,"The Twilight Samurai," which I hadn't watched in years. And I felt bad 'cause I'm sitting there tweeting about it. I posted a little light clip on it. And then it's like damn near impossible to find unless you had a DVD years ago, or you wanna spend a lot for it. But it's a really, it's funny'cause it's not an action movie so much. It's more of a drama with some action sprinkled in. And when I say some, I mean like two scenes out of a two plus hour movie, but it's just really well done about a widowed husband who is caring for his daughters and his mother. And he works as like an accountant and all of his fellow samurai, whenever they go out after work, they always nag him about not going out or like make fun of him that he runs home and he's kind of like disheveled and unkempt'cause he's caring more about his family than he is his appearance. And then he kind of through a sequence of events gets tasked with like finding this psycho killer and taking him out type of thing. So yeah, it's, but it's again, not action heavy at all. What's there is very real. And as somebody who practices martial arts for the better part about 17, 18 years now.- Yay.- Sometimes I like seeing realistic portrayal on screen. Most people always ask me like, since you studied, do you like seeing crazy fight scenes? I'm like, yeah, real life's way more fun than, sorry, movie life is way more fun than real life'cause a lot of stuff happens in real life is very small. You don't see it, it's very, just between the two combatants and movies, everything's exemplified. And I wanna see crazy flippy kicks and stuff like that'cause that's what's awesome about it. Stuff that I can't do. So, but this movie is just, it's really well done. Cinematography is wonderful. It's just, it's a really good time. So if you have a chance to see it, I would highly recommend that.- All right, nice. Well, I will counter that then. Usually I sort of like to think of, I scroll through my letterbox and I go, what have I seen that isn't an action film so that people will think I'm a normal human being? But I've scrolled quite a bit. It's not an enormous amount. So I will briefly mention,'cause I think the concept more than the movie itself, a movie called "The Lockdown". I don't know if you've seen this. There's basically a production company called Tiger Style Media.- Oh, I've heard of them.- Yeah. So they basically like made four direct to streaming martial arts movies. And this was one of them. And I remember seeing, they put out a trailer because I guess they made them all first. And then they were like, now we have these movies. And they put out a trailer that was like, hey, Tiger Style Media, we're making martial arts movies and here's clips of all of them. And it was a little underwhelming.- I agree. I saw that and I was like, oh, okay, this is awesome. But then I saw the trailer and I was like, there's possibly potential there, but you really buried, you didn't show your good stuff. Like maybe that's good, maybe it's bad.- I know, right? But in this day and age, and I'm the worst at this, in the era of like, quickly put everything in the first five seconds of the video or everyone will leave. And like, I'm like, no, let them, they'll get there. They don't get there in my experience, they don't get there. But yeah, this trailer was like clips of all four of these movies kind of announcing that they have made four movies. And like, I'm super psyched about the idea of someone going, hey, let's just like make four straight to streaming martial arts movies. People love that shit.- Yes.- However, in the, you know, social media, Twitter verse, the letterbox verse, I feel like letterbox is more or less unpleasant cesspit than Twitter, perhaps to read about movies, in that you could just select the people who you wanna hear from and are not bombarded by all the kind of detritus. But I was reading reviews of all four of them. And it seemed that maybe the worries that I'd had about the kind of announced trailer and that perhaps you'd felt the same way were not unjustified, right? So there's that sort of horrible point where you're like, I mean, like I wanna sort of be part of the conversation, but I don't know if I want to watch like eight hours of shit movies just to like have a water cooler chat, whatever that means at this day and age. So I picked the one that had the highest rating, which was this movie, "The Lockdown." And the skip to the end, pracie of it is, it's all right, actually. Like if going in, I think I had the lowest expectations possible, the other ones didn't look great. This one was like, okay, there's some people wrongly imprisoned in a Thai prison. And then it's like, I mean, I dunno. Then you're in like undisputed territory and suddenly everybody's on board with that, right? And yeah, I kind of thought, this direct video is gonna be very low budget, they're shooting in Thailand, but it doesn't look cheap. Like the actors are in it pretty good. The fights are like not bad. They're like good.(laughs) I mean, I gave it three stars and letterboxed, but I think I'm more interested in just the kind of the fact that four movies exist and I wanna champion that, but at the same time, I don't think I'll watch the other three. But this one I think is fine, "The Lockdown," three stars.- Okay, I have a friend, Michael Scott, who's the co-host of Action for Everyone.- Sure. - He watched two of them. And he had the same, he didn't watch this one though. And this was the one that we were, I think he was kind of holding on this one'cause the actual cast did impress me more than the other ones. And I saw this trailer and I was like, oh, it doesn't look super cheap. Like you were saying, it looks like a movie, which is great. And he said those other two were just kinda, he's like, man, I really wanna champion this because it's really cool that a company's coming back out to purely just make direct to video martial arts movies. Like we used to get in the 90s like every week. This one I've heard is the best one of the bunch from people that have seen it. And I plan on watching this one. I have it on my never ending watch list, but it's higher up because I'm like, it's what, an hour and a half, hour and 40 minutes.- It gets in, it gets out. - Get done with it. And that's all I want. And guess what? Sometimes just being fine is okay.- I know, right? And I think, I heard Mike have this exact same chat where he was kind of like, look, I don't wanna shit on it because I think it's a great idea. I think like in the A4E discord, we had a brief back and forth about it that was just like, yeah, like it is, it's great. I'm super psyched this is happening. Could we have had two above average movies instead of four slightly below average movies? But again, like congratulations, you made four movies.- And maybe this will spawn into making more, but like you said, less and maybe a better quality and maybe getting some better actors, like maybe one of the stars we're gonna talk about in a little bit today. He's, you know, if they give that man a budget, right? Or a little bit of a budget.- Yeah, yeah.- Okay, well good, I'm glad. This is one I've been wanting to watch. And I'm glad that you just--- Michael Bayne is in it. He's like the, I guess the name, you know, you gotta have increasingly these days in the streamers, it's like, oh yeah, I remember him. But somehow it's like, they get that, I guess you're the funding. If you put Tom Berenger in it, you get the funding, I don't know. It's an incredible world. I've got to, I'm desperate to sort of, I want to say interview, you know, a producer, but I think all the things I want to ask them are like off the record questions, you know? It's like the shit no one's gonna say. So like, if you get Bayne, like, how does it, who, someone from like, like France just gives you like half a million euros or something?'Cause they're like, yeah, they love him here. Make the movie. I just want to, it's like, I want to speak to Liam from Action for Everyone, I guess. He's very open and pretty honest about like all the behind the scenes of production of movies. It's so fascinating to me.- Very, very much so.'Cause you're right, there's gotta be that one name where you're like, oh, I can get like, we can get 25 grand for this guy and we can do the, or we can get this from here. And yeah, because they're big, you know, like certain actors may not be as big here anymore, but they're still huge overseas or in different markets. So yeah, that would be an incredibly interesting off the record, of course.'Cause you're like, nobody's gonna come out and go, oh yeah, we put them in just to get money.- I think if you like chat with Scott Adkins long enough, like he's so like down to earth and normal. Sometimes he just sort of lets these things slip where he's just like, yeah, we shot an accident man for like, we're like $1.9 million or something. And you're like, what?- They're like 12 days and there's like somebody off the corner going, don't let that happen.- It was like all of his press, there's like no one else in the room. It's just him, like it is a little sort of YouTube studio. Ah, I love it so much. Anyway, that's, bottom line, great that those movies got made. I hope it leads, I hope enough people, that's the thing, isn't it? It's like, I hope enough people watch them that they can make more, but it's like, maybe I hope enough people watch the good one and then give the others the benefit of the doubt. Also, there was a bit of chat on the socials or somewhere recently about Johnny Toe's The Mission, which I have either never seen or haven't seen it in so long that my fading memory banks hadn't logged it. So I rewatched it, courtesy of the internet is an endless treasure trove. It's actually, it's on YouTube, it's on YouTube. So I think that makes it okay.- It makes it more okay.- I don't know, I don't think that holds any water in a quarter floor. It's on YouTube, your honor. But I rewatched it and that is, that's a full, I gave that a solid four star letterbox. That's an absolute classic.- Yeah, it's a banger. It's, yeah, some of the most intense shootouts in cinema history, yeah, up there with John Woo type stuff.- Yeah, absolutely. And it's so of an era.- Yeah, and it's nowhere to be found. Like there's, we'll buy it, put it out. Like there's people that will buy it, but I guess we're just a small niche group. So that's like--- On a laser disc, like on the shelves behind you somewhere.- I wish I had laser discs.- That's probably the last time it existed.- Yeah.- It's on so many bootleg DVDs in New York's Chinatown, like gathering dust for five bucks. It's, yeah, it's extraordinary. That's another like, you know, quagmire of, where are all the Hong Kong movies? You know?- Right, come on. I mean, we're getting more and more, thankfully. All these boutique labels are snatching them up and then I'm paying way too much money for them.- And my wife is weighing her finger at me every other week when something shows up, but I'm like,"Hey, sorry, these have never been this good before. I can see all of the like glue holding their wigs on now."(laughing)- So true.- I love it.- Like all my memories of all those movies are like VHS quality, which at the time I guess was fine. Few of them, few of them, VCD, you know, DVD. But then you're like, "Oh, DVD, such high res." And it's like, it's 480. It's 480p. Why did it look so good quality at the time?- I know, right? Now I like, when like something comes up now and it's less than like 720, I'm like, "Goddamn, oh great. Thanks."- Right, it's like you play a YouTube video.- I'm not even gonna watch this right now.- And it doesn't skip to like full 4K. Like, "Oh my God, it's on 480. I can barely make this out." It's like made of Lego. That was DVDs. That was all DVDs. Absolutely extraordinary. Anyway, that movie is absolutely great. It's like, I think I just, I would describe it as like, it's like a masterclass in mise-en-scene. There's just so many scenes where there's like seven guys and they're all just like placed around the frame, placed around a room. Just so, the blocking is so good. Anyway, it's an absolute treat. And also at the same time, I spoke to another friend of mine, Chris Gao recently about "Twilight of the Warriors" Walden. And one of his notes was like,"How bad music often is in Hong Kong movies, or at least how the taste is very different to what we might associate with big budget movies or orchestration of movies." And the second I press play on the mission, it has like, I don't know if you have it etched in your mind, but like the theme music is one of those 90s, early 2000s, like, "Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh." Like a guy with a store-bought Yamaha keyboard. Oh, it's like "Chef's Kiss, good bad."- Yes, give that to me. And I will second, or if you, I think you just, you did talk about "Twilight of the Walden Warriors" and that movie, "Rules." I just watched a couple of weeks ago and it was amazing. Yeah, from start to finish, I'm just like,"We're getting this kind of stuff again? Oh my God."- I know, right? It just immediately transports me back to, I mean, I think we're both men of a certain age, but first discovering Hong Kong cinema and just being like having my tiny teenage mind blown. And it's like, "Okay, they're still, they can still do it." Between like, "That" and like Donnie Yen still putting out pretty great stuff. You're like, "There's still, and now there's like a new generation. Come on guys. I don't know how, but if Tiger style media can make four movies, there's gonna be enough people and money in Hong Kong."- There's gotta be to make these type of things. Yes, yeah. And it's also takes me back to a time where I tried to show all my friends, these awesome Hong Kong, they're like,"What is this, Andy?" I'm like, "It's great, trust me." And then 20 years later, they're like,"Those were awesome." I was like, "I know, I was just way ahead of the curve."- Right, oh man, yeah. I mean, that's like, it feels like the, well, I guess the internet has changed everything, but there was a time, you know, when I was watching these movies on VHS and DVDs and just desperate for somebody to like share them with. You know, I remember when I was in my early 20s, I lived in a town near where I went to university and I worked in like a music video retail store. And there was just like one guy there. He was also into Hong Kong movies. And then I'd just be like, "Come over,"we'll have some drinks and watch Hong Kong movies."I don't ever get to do this." And now again, I'm like, "I just watched these movies"on my own in my house."There's never anyone there." Like once in a while, you know, there's like a cinema trip where you could like, when RRR came out, for example, I know it's not a Hong Kong movie, but like, you know, it was just like a new thing. I went to see it on my own. And then the week after I was like,"Dude, you have to come and see this movie with me."It will blow your mind." And I like took two friends and then I just had that joyous like ride of being like,"God, I know what's coming."I know what's coming." And then you just look over and sort of see their faces doing that like,(gasps) And that, that's just something I don't get enough. The sort of sharing. Hence, I've got a podcast.- Yes, allow me really quick. I did that years ago with the raid and the raid two are local, a local, back when Kalamazoo had a draft house theater, we had it for a couple of years and then they just took it away.- That's like a cool indie cinema, right?- Yes, and they were doing the raid and raid two double feature. And I took a bunch of friends who hadn't really, who hadn't even seen both of them or seen the raid. So I did that. I sat back and I was just like, looking left, looking right. And I was like, wait for the door, wait for the door. And man, the whole theater, it's just, you're right. There's nothing like being in a theater of fans flipping out over a movie. It's right when there's cheering'cause sometimes noise can ruin the movie theater experience. Like earlier this week when I went, people were talking and I had to be the old guy who was like, hey, quiet down. And they were like, looked at me like I was a jerk, but I'm like, you're actually being the jerk. This is one of those times when I'm like, no, hoot, holler, cheer, yell for it. Yes. This is what it's called for. So yeah, that's, it's a great experience.- It really is. I saw the Indian movie "Kill" recently in the theater here in Mumbai. And I don't know if like you saw, for example, when RRR came out, that's, I think that's a time when a lot of us got like sucked into Indian cinema for the first time. But there was a lot of videos of people like, throwing confetti and you were just like, holy shit, this is like in a movie theater?- Yeah.- But like there's so many sort of different levels of theater and the ones near me are like posh multiplexes. So it doesn't, you don't get that. But during "Kill", I don't know if you've had the chance to see it yet.- I have.- There was, there's just like a few moments where there's that and even in this like very well behaved sort of full of adults and like couples and that there was a few bits where people were just like whooping and cheering. And I was just like, yes, yes. This, this is cinema. This is a man being his head has been set on fire.- And people cheering for it.- And we're all just, we're all just loving it. We're bad people, we're bad people.- Good bad people.- Good bad people. There's one other thing and it's only because I saw it in the last 30 minutes that it will immediately not be topical but I just saw the trailer for "Ballerina" from the, from the world of John Wick. Did you clock that in the last 24 hours?- Of course I did, yes sir.- There was a, there was a shot in that of a man with a flamethrower and a person with a fire hose firing at each other that could not have reminded me of RRR more than the like the fire versus water motif was like, come on. Someone was like, wait, how can we do our version of that? I love it. I love when it like one feeds into the other, feeds back, you know, like incredible. I hope, I hope that movie turns out great. It's directed by Len Wiseman. Len Underworld hasn't made a movie since total recall has mainly been doing TV Wiseman. Again, I wanna, I just, I'll never know, but I wanna know how that comes about. I wanna know.- There's a part of me that wonders if the producer,'cause you know, Chad Stjelski is very hands-on in the Wick universe and I think he had to step in to do some reshoots from what I've heard and read like, or he like oversaw them. So it's one of those things where it's like, I'm sure Len Wiseman was like, I'll do whatever you want me to do. Just pay me to make a movie, you know what I mean? Somebody who's like ego wouldn't get in the way of the movie, but.- That's a very interesting way to put it here.- Who knows? I'm going in with low expectations.- I think that's fair.- And I'm hoping to be wowed.- Oh, that's a lot. - 100%. I tell you what, I really enjoyed the continental, the Amazon Prime spin-off. - I did too.- And I went into that thinking like, don't fuck this up, don't fuck this up. And I thought they did pretty well.- Yeah, I thought they didn't fuck it up.(laughing)- They didn't wanna fuck it up. They want more chance to not fuck it up with Ballerina, you guys.- Yep.- Also Lance Reddick was--- I know, his final, it's gonna be his final on-screen appearance. So I'm gonna go see it for that a lot.- Yeah, that's a beaut. Yeah, and I didn't, maybe this was common knowledge, but I didn't know Keanu was making a, what I assume is like a short cameo in it, but like--- I think what we saw on the trailer is always gonna be--- When he popped up, I was like, sat next to my girlfriend and she was like,"Is it John Wick?" I was like, "Yeah, but like Keanu's not in this." And then he like stepped in and was like,"Oh my God!" I was like, one of those annoying like fan reactions that I'm so measured. And I was like, "He's in it, he's in it, he's in it!"- It's him, it's really him. I had to wait for my wife to get home from work and I ran upstairs before she even made it in the door with my cell phone interface. I'm like, "Look at that!" And she's like, "Andy, I don't care." I'm like, "You will?" And when she got it done, she was like, "Okay." I was like, "Well, opposites attract, I guess. I'll just go back downstairs to my dungeon. All right, bye."- All right, a lot of great stuff there. Andy, are you ready to head into, I would love to say the multiplex, but sadly this was not showing on a screen bigger than my TV anywhere I could find. The, wherever you watch movies, maybe it's on the TV that I see behind you, maybe it's upstairs, maybe you've got a whole cinema area, it's over there for the listener. To Andy's left. - For the listener, it's over there.- Let's head there for the feature presentation.(upbeat music)- And now, our feature presentation.- Dodge this.(explosion)- All right, we're comfortably seated. We have fired up the, whatever your preferred streaming network is, and we are watching life after fighting. This one comes from Australia. I think I'm safe in saying, not somewhere really known for action movies.(laughs) A lot of good actors, a lot of good movies, but I've not seen those two. I genuinely, aside from like Mad Max, I don't, I can't think of an action movie from Australia.- Not one of this caliber, no. Not one that kind of stands out in my memory, you're right. Like you said, actors all day long.- Yeah.- But like an authentic Australian setting, like production, couldn't name one off the top of my head.- No. So we've got a guy called Bren Foster, who until probably six months ago, was someone who was not on my radar at all, which I think speaks volumes as to, I don't know how big the world is, how many actors there are, how many people there are that are really good at martial arts, or how hard it is to like stand out, carve a niche, get cast in great movies, all of the above. But I think I saw the trailer for this movie, which again, sort of off the back of the tiger style media, I think that the trailer for this started out not great. It didn't reel me in, and it did the thing that I think is apparently fine,(laughs) but I'm hoisting myself by my own patat, by not really like showing any of the action till quite near the end of the trailer. And then there was like a few bits of action where I was like,"Okay, who's this guy?" And then I went digging, and found out a little bit about him. Turns out that Scott Adkins had his finger on the pulse, he'd interviewed him on his Art of Action podcast, YouTube interview show. I might also be a podcast. He spoke to him like two years ago, or something insane before this movie was even in production. So Adkins knows his shit. I think we all know that. And then I watched, and then for my sins, I watched a Steven Seagal movie that had been made post 2005, that he was in.- Is it on, yes.(laughs)- And he was pretty good in it, to be fair. I mean, it was Force of Execution, I think is the one I've watched. And if you've had the dubious pleasure of watching Ady. But he is like the highlight of that movie by 100 Miles, in a way where you go, you know, really what you should have done in an ideal world, this movie wouldn't have Seagal in it. And then it wouldn't have been made. We go back to the, well, apparently in Hungary, if you put Steven Seagal in the movie, we give you $100,000, like whatever it is. I'm like, who is still paying for the Steven Seagal movies? Anyway.- For sure, apparently.- Yeah, anyway, turns out this guy, Brian Foster, is an absolutely fucking literal and figurative martial arts champ. And this is a project that is like his baby, you know? Like he wrote the thing, he directed the thing, he choreographed the thing, he stars in the thing, they filmed the fucking thing in his actual dojo gym where he teaches in real life. It's like the ultimate sort of scrappy bootstrap movie. So, Andy, you get the dubious honor of, please sum up the plot of this movie for the listener. And this is an interesting one. I think I've got a few thoughts about it, but yeah. Let's kick us off with plot basics.- Plot basics, we are introduced to Brent Foster, who is in the first 10 minutes shown to be the greatest human being that has walked the face of the earth since Jesus Christ himself. He says nothing wrong, everybody loves him. He's like the nicest guy. Jaw chiseled out of granite, thighs that, he's like peak human perfection, like what a body can be, like what somebody can do.- His legs are like as wide as my chest.- Right, and I'm a white guy, like his--- He's the same age as me, it's insane.- Yeah, the fact that, yeah, he's only just like two years older than me and I'm just like, I will never look that good in my life.- Anyway, sorry, I've derailed you.- Yeah, no, that's quite all right. It's worth it to talk about how insane--- Gotta talk about his thighs.- I was saying his thighs were,'cause they take time to show it off, he knows.- I mean, he's not wearing long shorts in this movie. Let's put it that way.- No, or baggy pants. So anyway, he runs this school and his secretary/assistant, her two daughters go missing. And it goes from this kinda lighthearted, martial like teacher thing to like, oh my God, this is like dark and like scary quick. So they're kidnapped and then we find out through a series of events, certain characters that we've met in the movie are involved in child trafficking and selling children to other countries and you're like, wait, what? And then Brent Foster ends up finding them with the help of some, and then the last 45 minutes is like some of the greatest martial arts captured on screen in the last couple of years. And he basically saves them and they'll all as well.- Right, right, right.- And there's some minutes we'll in turn talk about throughout, and does it go off?- Whoo, all right, we'll get there, we'll get there.- I think I did a pretty good job explaining this movie.- I think so.- When it takes that turn, I was like, no. And it's one of those, if you were watching it holding an ice cream cone, you would drop the ice cream when the twist happens and these girls get kidnapped and you're like, wait, sorry to laugh, but it's like, it's so, you're like, this takes a turn. And from what I read, and I was, apparently Mark Foster was on a show on TNT here in the States called The Last Ship, and he had a pretty big role on that. He got to do some fighting in it. But I guess this is a subject that's near and dear to him and they put on some sort of event. And I guess not many people from the show showed up or supported it. And so he was like, I'm fine, I'm gonna make my own movie about it. So I give him the utmost credit. Like we said, getting a movie made is fucking impossible. And the fact that you get one made that's good is even better.- In Australia where they don't make action movies.- Nope, and there's like no infrastructure, there's nothing for him to do it. And like you said, I mean, you can tell later, and I love it, there's some shoddily built wooden areas for him to throw people into, but God damn it, I love it.- Oh my God, yeah, yeah. And I mean, yeah, let me state on the record before we get into this, I am not in favor of child trafficking. I don't know how many times I need to say it. And I think in probably the last year, this is the third movie that has handled this that I've talked about on the podcast after "Furang", another one where it was like, and maybe, what was the other one? Was it like "Furies" or something? Like that, that Vietnamese movie where it goes from, it's, I guess it's just so oddly taboo in society that every movie that handles it, at least, okay, maybe every straight to streaming action movie doesn't handle it with the, hmm, perhaps kid gloves it deserves, right? It's a pretty heavy topic. And maybe it's difficult to handle it with any nuance. And you know what? Maybe if you're making what is ostensibly a revenge movie, you don't need nuance because you're right. This movie starts out very wholesome. And this is something that maybe you and or, I would say any listeners, perhaps outside of Australia or the UK, are not so aware of, but in the UK, for the last 30 to 40 years, every day there are two Australian soap operas screened on two different channels that are like the, I don't know, I mean, they are like the sort of long running soaps like "The Young and the Restless" or those kind of like cheesy, everyday soap operas. One of them is called "Neighbours". That's where like Kylie Minogue started, like Guy Pearce started in that. And one of them is called "Home and Away". And at least three of the actors in this movie were in "Home and Away". And it's very difficult to watch a movie that is sort of, and it does look like a movie. I'm not saying this looks like TV, but like because it starts with so many sort of very like, down at home, we're just in the reception of like a local martial arts gym. It's got a very like Australian soap opera vibe. And then all, you know, I haven't watched this thing for years and years, but like when I was looking at, I wonder what else they've been in? I'm like, she's been in 250 episodes of "Home and Away". Like it's very, I think it's a quintessentially like British viewpoint of this, where you're like, oh yeah, it's like, those people and this. It's got a sort of like lovely, friendly, home and away vibe. And then suddenly, I mean, soap operas do this all the time, right, suddenly someone is mysteriously murdered in a very clunky way, or like suddenly some children are mysteriously kidnapped in a similarly clunky way. But yeah, so you're right. The plot such as it is, is he's a lovely guy. Some kids get kidnapped. He starts being romantically involved with the lady. She, her ex, oh, her ex-husband is like the antagonist, right? No spoilers. A guy comes in right at the beginning, acts super fucking weird and creepy from like second one. Like there's no- Just his look, he walks in, I'm like, that guy's a creeper. And he's a very good actor. His name is Luke Ford in real life. Apparently he's like an award-winning actor. And you know, in fairness, he plays this guy as an absolute piece of shit. Yeah, he's really good. Yeah, the first time I saw Luke Ford, he was in the third "Mummy" movie with Brendan Fraser. He played Brendan Fraser's son. And then I see this, I'm like, why does that guy look so familiar? I was like, wait a minute. He was supposed to be an action stand. Now he's this gigantic douchebag walking in here. Like, yeah, pretty amazing. But you're right, from the minute he opens his mouth, you're just like, oh, there's something- I think he'll probably be involved in the plot somehow. Yeah. And I counted down the seconds till he gets punched in the face. And I was just like, I can't wait for this guy to get punched. Right, right, right, yeah. There's no, yeah, so, you know, I think what's very interesting, I want to say, "Am I Still Very Early?" Love this movie. I think it's absolutely top tier, one of the best action martial arts movies of the year, if not recent years. So take everything I say after this with that grain of salt. But like, this is Brent Foster's baby, right? He wants to show everyone what he can do. He is both a trained actor and a really fucking trained martial artist, right? And he's been in "The Young and the Restless" doing acting, right? In an American soap opera. He's been in "Home and Away" doing acting. Even in "The Last Ship," he was cast in that just to be an actor in it, right? And then as the story goes, I'm sure you've watched the same interviews with him as I have where somebody was like, is there, have you ever done any fighting? And you're like, "Dude, can I just quickly show you this video of me doing like a spinning reverse roundhouse and kicking three boards that are like 26 feet in the air?" And then like, they're like,"Oh, maybe we should have you fight some people in this show."- Did also anybody on that show just look at him and say,"Okay, let this guy clearly take care of himself."- He's so jacked. So I guess this is him, I don't know. I mean, I guess like being on a network TV show for four or five years is like a pretty sweet deal. And maybe finally he was afforded the breathing space, the time, or at least COVID maybe, also COVID. But maybe, you know, he's got some money in the bank. He's like, "Maybe now's the time I can like put a little bit of money behind this, get some people involved, get this fucking movie made." And so as much as he wants to make the most kick-ass action movie, he clearly also wants to be like,"I can play some drama beats as well, you guys. You guys, I am an actor." And that sometimes is great. And I do think he is a good actor. And I do think all of those beats make the hell for leather, bat shit, crazy, latter, 30 minutes, all the better for it. But it does mean that like, he's really going for it in those action, in those drama beats. He's really going for it in the like, script writing, you know, there's like, and the movie clocks in at like two hours, 10 minutes, which with the best will in the world, it's an action movie. I love that you're setting it up, but did we, did we need to know that his character was infertile?(laughs)- Yeah, right. Yeah, I know, there's a--- Did that scene need to be in there, definitely being honest?(laughs)- You know what, it didn't, but at the same time, as I've watched this now, a couple of times, the first time I watched it, I was like, okay, you trim 20, 30 minutes, we're talking one of the, you know, like most badass, quick, but then I also sat back and I was like, well, wait a minute. If I had toiled doing supporting roles, getting cast in Steven Seagal movies, and keep getting passed over for role and role and role, and I'm gonna make my own movie, I guess, yeah, I'm gonna throw everything and the kitchen sink at it, and I'm not gonna give two shits about it. And so I've come around on the length, I'm like, yeah, you know what? I've seen way worse movies that are shorter, I've seen way better movies that are longer, so it's fine, it's one of those things where I'm like, yeah, in a perfect world, yeah, trim 20, 30 minutes, and just give us all the action. But I get, as a proof of concept and a proof of betting on yourself, more power to 'em, right? It's one of those things where it's like, good, show everybody what you can do, but you're right. You can do that without having to make your character infertile or something like that. It just seems to kind of throw away.- Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know, and I 100% agree with you, only show most enthusiasm for a Mandy Gorham, but like--- Yep, only.- Yeah, the first time I watched this movie, I was like, sorry, did he just say he was infertile? And then also, there's just some, someone I should have written down who it was, I was just sort of scrolling through to see what people were saying about this, and maybe it was in a review or a tweet, but it described this movie as, quote unquote, a blunt instrument. And I think that can be a positive in that the action goes so fucking hard. It is incredible. But also, some of the drama beats are like, hit you over the head.- Yeah.- Like, I found out I was infertile right before my last fight and my head just wasn't in it, and you're like, I mean, I am a generous audience, but like, people would laugh at that. There's also a couple of incidents of, I would say, unnecessary violence towards children in this movie that is like, again, could we have sort of implied this without, no, I don't think it's a spoiler, but seeing a man cut a child's finger off, did we need that? Do we need an actual child to die in this movie? Like, on camera?- Yeah.- To really like, fuel his rage towards the, I mean, I don't know, something, it's because you don't see it a lot and maybe that's what he's saying. He's like, well, if you think that's bad, that's happening every day in Romania, apparently. I don't know how bad Romania is, all right, but whatever. Like, there was just a few of those bits where you're like, fucking hell, mate. I think you could tone that down a bit. Like, I don't mind you murdering like, 10 people ruthlessly. But I don't need to see a child being pretend murdered. I can't, like, I can't differentiate it in my head that it's a movie.- Based on everything I've seen in movies, like Romania is one place, I don't think I need to go. Like, it doesn't seem like anything good happens there. But that could be.- I'm sure it's lovely as well. I bet. Easy just flies there for London for 30 pounds. And I'm sure it's a lovely timeout.- Yep. I felt that way too at first with the girl dying. I was like, this serves nothing, but then what it does is I think it, from a story standpoint, it shows that what he has to kind of switch that head space in the last 40 minutes,'cause, you know, and I'll expunge more then, but it gives his character the ability to say, all right, now I have to go from hurting these guys to maiming and killing them, because this is what could happen to all these other girls if I don't. So yes, the first time I was like, ooh, didn't need that. But then as I've rewatched it, and again, shameless enthusiasm. Aside, I do think it plays narratively later. But you also could have, like you said, you could have just said something. You didn't have to necessarily show. And maybe that's it. Maybe that's why it's affecting us more is 'cause like, I don't wanna see that. So it's very uncomfortable when you have to take your coat and cover a kid. Like, I have no problem if he had to cover his girlfriend or like his like best friend, I'd be like, oh, now shit's on. But when it's a kid, you're just like, oh no, not that.- Yeah, and I don't know why it's different. There's something, you know, the fridging the girlfriend is like the meme, but like there's no like, it's just where the kid is allowed to be kidnapped at best. Like that's where we draw the line.- You can raise your hand at a kid, but you can't slap a kid. And if I see you slap a kid, you're going, you know, it's like, yeah, it's so, yeah, it is very interesting. It just leaves an odd taste in the mouth. Yeah, and maybe that's what he wanted. And if so, more power to him. So I think, yeah, like we've got through the first hour odd of this movie. And I will say this, although I do think it's too long and I did, and I thought to myself the other day, I wonder how interesting a project would it be for like giving it all this mouth and like, oh yeah, you think you're a video editor, do you? What are you fucking like cut 30 minutes out of this movie you've got the movie, drag it into final cut, you cut it down to a hundred minutes and make it make sense. And I'm like, are you okay? So this is just a challenge. Probably a challenging, probably challenging. They're probably like movie editors that would do a good job nonetheless. He does, they do, I don't know, he didn't edit it, I think, right? But I'm sure he was sat there. It's his baby. He does pepper in some sprinklings of action throughout. You know, there's a little scuffle at the beginning where he's being a very good guy. And I love that it basically just takes place next to a busy road outside the dungeon. Like it's such a beautiful like, puts you in mind of every YouTube fight reel, where it's just like, we just went to the park and shot a really good fight. And it's literally just that. And then there's also again, which I'm sort of in two minds about, a completely superfluous subplot about another fighter who happens to be in Australia and wants to challenge him, which you 100% could cut out of the movie and it would not affect it in any way. Apart from, it does give them the excuse to put in quite a good, solid one-on-one fight scene about halfway through the movie when it does need a fight scene.- Yeah, yeah. And it does give her, it shows some more character beats where, you know, this young brash fighter is calling him out 'cause he never got to fight him. And this guy is now champion. He doesn't feel like he's worthy of champion until he beats like the best of all time. But then when they have their little meeting and it's not so much, I do like it's not like a cocky meeting, you know, when the guy shows up, it's very down to earth and it's very like, I just want to prove myself to me. And then our main character is like, and he knows, he's like, I know you do that fight. Like he says it without saying it. He gives him that little, you know, kind of winking a knot. And he's like, this is our right.- Yeah, he's like, did I hear that you were infertile? Is that something?- Is that why you lost that fight?- Is that why you lost?- Oh man. But yes, and is it a banger of a fight? But it's one of those two where it's like, as in like undisputed, when these guys are just in shorts, there's no way to hide everything. So they're, and I got to hear the guy he fought talk about this movie recently. And he's like, we went at it. Like we tagged each other. Like it was not like hard, but it's one of those things when they've been training together for like 20 years. So they know each other's timing. They know each other's speed and they've done this for, you know, endlessly. So it was like, and that's one other thing. Like when you watch this movie, according to them, the fight scenes are not sped up at all. They're not speed ramped at all. This is what you see is what you get. And these are some of the fastest, most powerful human beings I've ever seen, like move. So yeah, the fight, that whole storyline is a little like not needed, but I think from character beats and standpoints, it does play into it. And he kind of gets a lot of great messages about if you're gonna like, cause he quit, he gave up. And he always tells all of his students, if you're not gonna put forth effort, like if you're not gonna try, it's not even worth, you know, if you're gonna give up, it's not even worth trying. So it kind of, he's telling them this, but he's also kind of feeling a little hypocritical. And now he gets to kind of put that at ease and bury that part of him. And he's like, now I can fully teach again. So, you know, after all of this is done and I've killed 20 people, I can go back to teaching kids martial arts.- Yeah, I like that. I think that's a nice take on it. Yeah, like it, you know, yes, if you're gonna be aggressive, you could cut it out, but I think, you know, if you were a distributor, you would be like, no, obviously don't cut that out. That's a really, really good bit.- That's a good fight.- Yeah, yeah, 100%. And also I think, I suppose it's like a chance to see him fight at length. Like he has the scuffle on the grass and then two sort of random ne'er-do-wells show up in his class for reasons. And then he gets to have a little knockabout with them.- For reasons that any of us watching go, I know why those guys are there and he's totally oblivious. Like, (laughs)- Right, right. So yeah, so it's a nice, I mean, yeah, if you kind of come into this movie being like, all right, let's go 10 minutes in, when's the first action scene coming? Like, you're like, oh, looking at your watch, like a fair 40 minutes. Then there's like, okay, okay, I'm pretty solid, pretty solid. And then, yeah, and then it kind of takes it, like it goes pretty creepy for a while. Like, while he's like rescuing the kids, it kind of works on like, I don't know, almost like horror thriller tropes. There is a very, like when his, is it girlfriend? You know, his, their womb.- Potential girlfriend, yeah.- Yeah, the woo-wee. When his woo-wee goes to the ex-husband's house where he just keeps, he just keeps the kidnapped kids in his house, as you do. And--- Which after seeing that house, why would you ever let your son go back there, right? I mean, what the hell? No, no.- So then there is a, she goes to investigate moment where you're like, obviously don't go to investigate. Obviously just get back in the car and go to the police.- Call the police, call the police. But there would be no movie if they called the police.- I know, I know. Every movie that's just like, just call the police straight away. Call the police straight away, run as far away as you can.- Even though cops suck, not all of them do. A lot of them do. Go to the police.- Right, I don't know. I've got no opinions on Australian police. I imagine you are.- Yeah, same here. I'm totally based on my prejudiced side of American cops. So yeah, I'm sure Australian police are, there's probably good and bad just like in everywhere, right?- I think they do carry guns, but I don't think they use them very much.- No, I think they use t-shirts more than guns.- Come down and they're like, mate, mate, can we just talk about it? Come on, mate, let's just have a VV.- I think no matter how mad I was, if somebody called me mate like that, I'd be like, all right.- The thing is they go from mate to cunt so quickly that people who aren't Australian are just like, sorry, what did you just call me? Is it on? Is it suddenly on? And you're like, no, man, you're a good cunt. Well, I was just saying you're a good cunt.(laughing) They're like, do you want to fight me or hug me? What is happening?- Because we can do both, that's okay.- Yeah, I know, right? It turns out they're all so big as well. I think it's about countries with wide open spaces. It's like the US. Everyone's just hench these days. Same with Australia. It's very nice whether they do outdoor shit.- Rugged black.- Oh, that'll be rugby. So yeah, it becomes like a creepy horror thriller there for a bit where it's like a knight and she's creeping around and then he's creeping around. And then, I don't know if you had anything, any thoughts on the creepy don't go in there part.- No, it's one of those things where I'm like, after I've seen it, I'm like, I'm just waiting for what comes next. So yeah, it's one of those like, okay, I get it.- You're like, move this along, move this along to wherever this is going. And you know, like, I suppose in a master stroke and also like the first rule of filmmaking, like write what you know, use what you have, it goes full like Kevin Smith making clerks in the convenience store where he worked when it was closed at night, right? It's like, we have to go back to my martial arts school, Dojo, for read, but just meet me there. It doesn't matter what I know, just agree to meet me there. I've got access, it's a good space.- There's no cameras.- We can film there every night. I've got the keys, right? Super smart bit of filmmaking.- It is.- So he ends up--- It's a big space too. It's not like a small confined space, so yeah.- I guess the real estate in Australia, don't know where it is, mate, it's probably out of town a little bit, right?- Yeah.- Like it's definitely next door to like a CrossFit box. There's, and like, it's like an industrial park. I don't know, it's got a great space there anyway. I'd love to visit the real gym, which is his real gym whenever I'm nearby. I want to say near Sydney. So anyway, like skip to the end, he gets the bad guy to come to get the girls back so he can traffic them to Romania. Apologies to all the nice Romanian people. They've got to go and meet him in the dojo. And then they're on his turf. And then this movie goes from zero to 160 in about two minutes. Like he just puts the kids away in the upstairs office then tries to call the police on a cell phone that doesn't call out. And then despite the fact that it's a massive building full of offices, there's no more phones in that building. We don't need to.- Well, remember they cut the power outside.- They do cut the power outside. Apologies.- They thought of everything.- I looked away. I looked away during that part. Two assholes are going to be talking about this saying they couldn't call out and no, we got the power.- Yeah, no, absolutely fair days. Absolutely fair days. And so the bad guy who is the actor look forward awful, slimy piece of shit. They've gone for the main bad guy is a great actor but not a fighter trope, but he does have an end of level boss second in command. Who it turns out is one of the guys who bowled up in his gym earlier. He stays back in the van. We all know what that means. Hopefully if anyone is like made or seen a good martial arts movie knows that they save the end of level boss to the end. He sends the other guys into the building through various doors and the roof, smart.- Yeah, don't just go through one, go through multiple different entrances. Yeah.- And then Bren Foster becomes a one man wrecking crew.- Unleashes hell on these poor bastards. But they're also child.- Trafikas.- Trafikas, thank you for the word. Yeah, so good. Like, yeah, hurt them badly, like really hurt them. And that's what I like about it. It starts with him just kind of knocking them out or putting them down and putting them to sleep. And then that classic getting back up. And if you wanna get Andy's blood boiling to watch your movie, you put the same six stuntmen in mass and let them run in at different times. Give me that shit all day long.'Cause I know these are like the best of the best people.- You know it's good when they put all the clavers on, when they put ski masks on. You know they're sending in the same five to 10 good guys. It's the John Wick approach, right?- The best stuntmen who can take the most gnarly falls who can work with Bren Foster and let them kick them in the head because they don't, 'cause it's like for the movie and he just unleashes holy hell on them. You're right. Like left and right, some of the most fastest, intense choreography and like impactful. Like sometimes when they do crazy kicks, they don't, you're like, I don't, like that's impressive. It doesn't look feasible. He makes it look so fast and feasible. Like I don't ever wanna get touched by this guy, let alone kicked. The power he has is insane.- The power of, this is one of the things I wanted to like talk about with the, we're into the fight block now. And this is the unapologetic like final 30 minutes of the movie. Like, right, this is it. This is why you're here. And then we're all like, all right, mate, well, we've sat through like an hour and a half of, you know, up and downs. So what do you got? And like within one minute of three guys like running through that door, I just literally like, whenever I watched this in the last couple of days, and this was the second time I'd watched it, it put me in mind of, it was like the first time you saw Eco, Tony Jarr, Scott Adkins, where you were like, where I was just like, holy shit. This guy is something else. Like, well, A, you know, maybe you don't know this when you first watch it, but A, he is in his mid 40s, which seems absolutely insane, right? B, his technique is incredible, but C, the power. And combining all of those with, these are like his guys, his like stunt crew slash instructors slash friends, or like stuntmen, martial artists, whatever, who put this movie together, like the speed, the precision and the power with which when this onslaught begins, it, I mean, it does like ratchet up from, as you say, like let's put them to sleep to we, I'm definitely, I would probably be going to prison for murdering all these people, but, but you know.- I just smashed this guy's head in and his brain's on the floor.- I'm pretty sure I didn't need to kill him, but nonetheless.- Oh no, then he needed to.- Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it is just like, and it's such a showcase for, and then I mean, and I mean this in the nicest possible way because I'm sure Bren Foster is going, is sitting somewhere going, guys, I've been doing this for quite a long time. Anyone, we could have done this 20 years ago, I could jump higher then, you know, we're like discovering him.- I would be even faster back then.(laughing)- I'm just sort of like, I'm sorry, Bren, like I don't know why, like, and I don't, I don't know if this is like not a compliment or a compliment. I'm like, I don't know why you're not Scott Adkins already. Maybe you don't want to be Scott Adkins'cause you wanna be more of a quote unquote serious actor, but like fuck, like being martial arts action movies, please for the next 10 years before you're too old to, like, I just wanna see more of him doing this. It's incredible.- It is, it's absolutely jaw dropping. And it's like, it's one of those, it could run the risk of getting repetitive.- And it never does.- He's, he mixes in grappling, he mixes in groundwork, and the way the camera rolls with him, and it's just, and when I was, I got to see this, I watched it at home, but I saw this on the big screen last month at the aforementioned Big Bad Film Festival, which is an amazing film festival.- So jealous.- And let me tell you this, when every impact the crowd was just like, oh, cheering left and right. It was an amazing just viewing to be a part of, but watching it again this past week, just kind of to refresh my mind, and also just to be wowed again and to show my, just to bug my wife, I'm like, come here, check how fast this guy is. Okay, honey. Yeah, he just, the way he does it, and the way he starts to slowly ramp things up to where, you know, the first goon that kind of kills himself when he throws him down the stairs and the knife goes in, you're like, I just did that. And then when he takes the doorknob off and like ends that one guy, and then I like that he kind of takes a moment to start wiping the blood off his hands and give us that little like, no, this guy doesn't do this stuff often, so yeah, you would freak the fuck out. And then from that point on, it's like, okay, all bets are off now, I have to do this. And yeah, he's slamming people's heads into, like, there's brain matter on the floor, he's breaking glass. One of the things I love about the way Bren choreographs a fight, he does something that I've never seen, he does a lot of like push-ups to make distance and then use that distance to kind of like either punch them or pushes them to kind of throw them off of their game, and then he just, like a leopard jumps in there and hits them like 15 times with his hands, or he does a crazy kick or spin kick. And then I think two or three people get pushed off through glass and they go through glass. I love it.- Yeah, there are those points, like those kind of, what do you call them? Like punch lines, I suppose. Maybe like Jackie Chan would describe them as that, or like Gareth Evans, you know, how to punctuate those fight scenes.- It builds to a crescendo almost.- Yeah, to like a memorable, you know, we'll get there in a minute, like action replay moment where you go, oh, the bit where, you know, like you talked about earlier, the bit in the raid with the door where he pulls the guy over the door and it goes like, and it's in his throat. And there is a bit in this movie that, oh, unapologetically owes a debt to that, right? I am sure they would all be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, happening in the raid, happening in like gangs of London season two, wherever that happened is like so brutal. But also sometimes I think, you know, what you find with like these super low budget movies is, you know, we've spent all the budget just like hiring lights and cameras. We can't do like, you know, gags, like stunt gags, but there are some really nice bits where he kicks someone like through a window and they're clearly, you know, ratcheted on a wire through a window. Like a stunt man is doing that. And it just like adds production value where you sort of don't expect it, where you're like, okay, well, they're shooting the whole thing in his convenience store, Jim now, so we're cool, you know, be like, oh shit, he's smashing up his gym. And like you say, they've built these little plywood boxes that don't look like they would be there during class. Why would they, the guy's gone through them. The guy's gone through them. Yeah, I just, I really like that they use the space really well.- Oh yeah, yes, very much so. Then there's that one, I mean, he literally chokeslam somebody into like a glass case. So it's not just, you're right. There's some really good stunt moments built around this and they were like, okay, we can showcase that we're not only great fighters, but we're really good stuntmen. And from what I've been told, Brent Foster is like the stuntman, stuntman. That's what he's known. So when people are like, people are like, just get Brent. So that's why we haven't seen him in front of the camera so much as he's so integral behind it, which is great, but also sucks for us fans.'Cause he really is good and he's got that look. And I love when he's-- He's got movie star looks.- And he's smart enough to build some moments of breathing into the fight. Like when he's tired and he's telling himself like, get the fuck up, like you're not a fucking quitter. And he's like psyching himself up. You're like, I'm getting psyched up. I was like, oh man, this guy's gonna get it now. And boy, do they ever. So yeah, it's really just, it's just expertly crafted from a stunt perspective, from a fighting perspective, from even filming, 'cause the camera rolls with them when they do grappling. It's not just static and just, let's just keep the camera here. Like, no, he understands the camera moving, adds to it. And he never pushes in too far, and never pulls out too far to where you're like, okay, let's just, can't see what's going on. It's wonderful.- Yeah, I mean, this is something that I think, the action community such as it is talks about Adam Finitum and like Scott Adkins harps on about this so much when he chats with people is like, how the fight is shot and how it's edited. And given that Brent Foster is, this is his first credited directorial work, right? And I don't know who his DP is or their history with shooting action, but like this thing is shot to perfection with the eye of someone who knows, put the camera here so that you see the full extent of this kick, put the camera and it like, move the camera from this side to this side. There's also, because they're all so good, there's like long takes and exchanges where the camera just moves in a way where there's no obvious like pulled punches or sort of air hits or it's all just like, yeah, all the pieces of the puzzle just fit together so well. And the sound design, I have to shout out the sound design on this movie because it's like somewhere between like Isaac Florentine's overuse of like Foley and absolutely like chef's kiss, heyday of Hong Kong action cinema. It's like just the right amount of like too much that it feels so impactful. There's just so many lovely like, and you know, like whooshes and those crunching hits that adds to, it already looks like he's almost killed the guy in real life. Like everything looks so powerful. And the sound design just like elevates it to a level that is just, mwah.- Yes, that's one of my biggest pet peeves with like direct to video movies. And Atkins is not, I love, he's my favorite. He's one of my favorites, but like Savage Dog, there's some great fights in it, but the sound and Foley effects, it just sounds like, pfft, pfft.(laughing) And this, I'm like, I don't need every punch to sound like Indiana Jones taking a bat to leather, but damn it, I love taking a bat to leather sound. Like it's perfect. And this, you're right, this has that moment. And there's when bones break, they break, but it doesn't sound like, it's not like echoing through the place. It's really well done and it's thoughtful. And that's what I like.- It's like the guy in the studio twisting the celery into the mic, right? Like whatever it is, it's just perfect.- Yes, yep. So, and there's a pretty good rock score with it. There's sometimes you get like those scores and like, this one is kind of video gaming'cause that's how this, I mean, and I mean that in the utmost respect'cause it like, the music helps build tension too. And if it was just kind of like lame keyboard, like we talked about earlier, or not lame, but you know what I mean, it just wouldn't have fit well. And this one has some good like, some good driving beats to get you kind of like into the flow of the fight and the scene. So yeah.- For sure, yeah, for sure. And it's also got like, it's like scored nicely, right? It's like, there's a few nice tracks. It's like that the one-on-one fight has a sort of like hip hop track, which I was like, do I like this? Do I not like this? I think it kind of works. Yeah. And otherwise it's like scored in a nice like movie-score-y way again, I think. It's sort of like, pun intended, punching above its weight in production value in that regard. And I think, yeah, to lead us to the top floor of the game of death video game analogy.(laughing) Then we get to the end of level boss. Like there is, I did, I wrote down in my notes, I was like, blood on his hands. And I remember he's like, oh my God, like he looks like he's sort of guiltily. I can't believe I've, I can't believe these people have died at my hands. But then he's like 100% murdering from then on. I thought he was like, I'm guilty. I shouldn't be doing this. But he's like, no, no, no, no. I just need to clean my hands off because a lot more is getting on them. Like, I don't know. I wasn't sure like exactly what I was supposed to be taking from that. I was like, oh, he's, the first guy, yeah. Like sort of accidentally dies. The second guy, he definitely kills him. And then he seems very guilty about it. But then he just goes on the absolute like kill murder rampage, right? Oh, I mean, one guy gets like a raid level four or five stabs to the leg, the chest and then he spins them around and just impales it into his neck. And I'm like, oh God. But then again, I guess, I guess in that, what he's getting for that character, if he doesn't do this, those kids are dead. So, you know, it's one of those things.- They have to be murdered.- Yeah, they have to be murdered. And then he has to, I have to break this guy's leg. And then I have to break this guy's arm. Then I have to break his other arm. So he can't do anything to me again. And every single one of those moments is like so good. It's so like, I'm sure like yourself, like I watch a lot of mid-level action movies, you know, in search of movies like this, that just like you just sit up and you're like grinning with, I know it sounds so like to not fans of action movies, but those moments where you're like, fuck dude, this is like, it's not like, ah, like some of the stuff in Kill is like,- Oh yeah, it's kind of a wind scream. This is like a cheer. You're like, yes.- And I think like, yeah, I guess part of the MO of Kill is that holding a mirror up to the audience in like, oh, this is, oh, you're into this, are you? Whereas this, I think you can revel in the man. That's just like, it's just like so well choreographed, so well executed, pun intended.- They just, they just nailed the exact, for my tastes, and I think for like action movie fans tastes, say what you want about the first hour, but like the fucking finale, there's no way you can come out of that disappointed.- Nope, never. And it makes you, I'm like, I just wanna see Bren Foster and Scott Adkins be like brothers in a movie and just let them wreck so many people. Like it'd be perfect. Give them both beards,'cause they both look awesome with beards. Like people look better with beards, let's be honest.- Two-bit wearing men.- As we say, it has two bearded white guys.(laughing)- In the 40s, it's very much a riot passage.- It is, yeah, yeah. And we're talking on a podcast. So yeah, two white guys, podcast, beards. We're like crossing all the boxes off here.- It couldn't be more of a podcast at this point.- It couldn't be, but yeah, it's just, if you walked out of this movie going, eh, I didn't really like that. I really don't know what else to say to you.- Yeah, I mean, I don't know like who took you to the movie or like how you ended up watching it, if that's the case. So yeah, sorry, before I got derailed again, I was saying like the final level, end of level boss. So we get teased, this guy, he's like, I know we're in Australia and it's closer to a lot of Asian countries, but like in so many movies, he's like an Asian guy. I don't know where he's from, but you, from the 1990s to now, if it's not that one guy with the really big beard who was in all the movies is the bad guy who was really good at martial arts in the 90s and 2000s. Sadly, RIP, I forget his name. Do you know that guy's name I'm talking about?- Oh yeah, L. Leon.- Leon, yes, yes. So like to play into that trope of like, the chief henchman is an Asian guy, he must be really great at martial arts. And then this is something I found very interesting on first watch and then on second watch, I think I got to the bottom of it. So all the bad guys put on ski masks, we call them balaclava's, right, to come in because so they can recycle the stuntmen over and over again or however, right, and they're all amazing. So the chief henchman in his defense, he gets the best ski mask because it has like an evil skull face on it, right? So you know it's him and he also has red sleeves and I don't doubt that production thought all of this through. However, my slight bugbear about this, and I will both address the point and then I think answer the point, is he keeps the mask on for the entirety of the fight until the very end when he's basically dead and then Bren takes the mask off. But we establish early on in the movie, we see the dude's face, the actor slash performer, we see him doing the fight, we know he's hard as nails and fast as fuck and you're like, man, when these two go toe to toe, I presume at the end of the movie, we're in for a treat and sure enough, they do. And then they go toe to toe and don't get me wrong, is an absolutely banger finale fight, right? They do some hand to hand, shit gets real, then there's like weapons and stuff. It's absolutely great. And I was like, but why is he, you teed this guy up the whole movie and then he's wearing a mask the whole time. And I think my answer is this, and see if you agree with me. The fight starts out hand to hand where I assume it is this guy wearing the mask. Then it goes to what you might describe as like almost a sword fight, right? He's got like a wooden sort of training sword and Bren's got like a bow star for stick. I'm assuming a different guy is doing that part of the fight. Maybe that guy is super trained in stick work and this other guy is the hand to hand guy. That's my behind the scenes guess as to why the chief bad guy of the movie does not reveal his face for the entirety of the final one on one. Thoughts?- That really, that could be, and I just looked that guy up. His name is Masa Yamaguchi and he is a Japanese Australian actor, but he's 50 years old.- Get out of town.- No, shut the front door.(laughing) He also is, he gets he's a dancer as well. It used to be interesting.- Okay, I just got his photo up on NIMDB. He's a good looking lad, isn't he?- He's a good looking lad, yeah. And you could be right'cause he does seem like he's really good with the hand to hand, but I don't know being good at hand to hand doesn't always translate to weapon work. So that's a really good hypothesis and I can get behind that. And the fact that we get hand to hand and then weapons, you don't get a lot of weapons fights nowadays.- That is also a great point, yeah, yeah.- And Brinkin, man, does he,'cause there's that scene earlier where you see him practicing with the staff. I was like, that's gonna come into play later and I love when it does'cause if it didn't, I'd be very disappointed.- It fully put me in mind of like the 1990s, you know, training montage, like Jeff Speakman, the perfect weapon. He's just training, you know, with the sort of classic Wing Chun doll over the opening credits of the movie. I'm sure Sigal does it at times as well. You're like, the dude's training with a Bo staff, I see them in the background. If he's not taking out some goons later, I don't know. And I mean, in an ideal world, that staff gets broken in half and then we've got to, sadly we don't see that. I'm sure he appears to be a master of so many forms that like we've, you know, he's clearly his big thing is like Taekwondo and I think Hap Kido, but also like the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. There's so much like groundwork and grappling.- Can we tie aspects 'cause of the kicks and stuff?- Yes, there's some beautiful like huge knees to the head and like those, I wanna call them like Tony Jar elbows. I don't think he invented them.- No, but he perfected them on screen.- Yeah, yeah, yeah.- Oh, now I kinda wanna see Brent Foster versus Tony Jar as well.- I think Tony Jar's sort of having a little renaissance, isn't he? He's popping back up and stuff.- Yes. He had that weird unbox three for a bit and then he kind of like went in the forest and stuff with his elephants, which is great. Everybody has a little breakdown, I'm sure, when you get thrust into the startup.- Went to Joshua Tree, took some magic mushrooms.- Who knows? But yeah, he's been having a good couple of years. So yeah, get him back.- Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think this is the, this is, I mean, I think anyone who's a fan of action movies watches this movie and then we're all just like, and it must be so annoying if you're Brent Foster who's like slaved over this movie for the last probably three years. And we're like, right, what next, Brent? When are you gonna be in a movie, Undisputed Five, Adkins versus Foster? When's it happening? And they're like, "Fucking hell, guys."Do you know how hard it is to even get one movie?"- One movie, man.- Yeah.- Adkins versus Foster versus Eco versus Tony Jeff. We just want it all and we're never satiated. Even though we love it for a minute, as soon as we get done, our minds are like,"Yeah, but who can you fight next?" He's like, "Mate, can I just have a break?"- I'm 47.- For fuck's sakes.- Everything aches.- How do you feel, Andy? I feel terrible every morning. That's how I feel. And look at me though, I'm in deep physical shape. I fought zero goons today and my back hurts.- Zero goons.- Yeah, so I mean, yeah. This just is a wholehearted recommendation from me as an action movie fan. I'm probably not gonna recommend it to my parents, but if you're a genre fan, this movie is so up your alley. And when we're, I'm talking about it at the same time as The Lockdown, which is absolutely fine, DTV bread and butter, like I'm delighted it's being made. I'm delighted there's an audience for it. I still don't know who the, like, how does it work? Are people just scrolling through Amazon or iTunes and it's like, got a good poster and it's Friday night and they're like, "Sure, I'll pay five bucks." I genuinely don't know how that works.- I know, I've heard a couple of names, like, you know, Katie Lotts was, you know, she's kind of a big, if you like the arrow, you know, CW shows, she's in that, so she's a name. And then Leo Howard was, if you grew up watching, kicking it on Disney Plus, you know, he's in there.- Yeah, no idea, but I found that out after the fact. And he had fair play to the kid, like, he can move also, like he's got some moves.- And he's like, you know, he's a handsome kid, like he's a good looking guy.- So, you know, he may get him, get Adkins, get Brent Foster, get Tony Jock, get Iko, who else is, who else we got this?- Tiger Chen can get thrown in there, he's still good.- Tiger Chen in there, is Donnie yet available?- Put him with a good haircut, please. Every movie that guy, just somebody puts a bowl on his head and just gives him a cut.- Can we get Vidyal Jamwal from India? I feel like no one's putting him in any good movies outside of India, don't know how the industry works. And I don't know why, well, in fairness, having said all of this, we have all watched Triple Threat.- Yeah.- And that is not the sum of its parts. And that is literally almost what we're joking about now.- Exactly.- Which is--- It's got some great moments in it, but it also has some moments where you're like, come on guys, you have all these guys, like make them just fight more.- I know, right? I saw a tweet recently from, is it, it's Jesse Johnson, right? That movie or is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Saying something like how the studio producers, whoever had like butchered the movie and there was a director's cut on a hard drive somewhere. And I was just like, leak it, leak it, leak it.- We're all like, we need it. We're all tapping our veins, like give it to us.- Just send me the megalink and I'll put it somewhere anonymously, come on. Yeah, so I mean, it's the world we live in where there's just like no satisfying everyone. But I mean, this movie, I think is one of those satisfying everyone and by everyone I mean, action movie nerds. Like this is great. This is, you know, top however number of the year. I'm putting this up there. Like just loved it. Just loved it.- Agreed.- Get Brent Foster and John Wick 5. Andy, we have waffled for so long. I only have one more thing to ask you and that is for your action replay moment.(dramatic music)(laughing)- Okay, my action replay moment.- I can't make it as British as possible.- Is that final fight? I've seen a lot of double kicks. I've seen a lot of triple kicks, but I have not seen a quadruple kick that looks as impactful as that. And when he starts that running up and they slow mo it, I was like, here we go. Let me tell you, everybody was just cheering at me. They were all like, quadruple kick. So yeah, that is my action replay of the night.- Dude, that's a great moment. And when I saw that again today, I was like, what's that? What's that for? It has to have been for, right? Because like, I feel like Donnie Yen maybe didn't invent, but I feel like again, popularized the three. I'm pretty sure Adkins has done the triple.- Mm-hmm, yep, yep.- And then, you know, you're not just gonna do that. You got this guy's kicking six boards out of people's hands. The quadruple kick is an absolutely incredible moment. He's also spinning wide. It's not just, you know, 'cause I mean, not to take away from Donnie Yen, but he does the one where he jumps. It's like three side kicks. Equally impressive. I've tried, I've fallen down every time, and it looks terrible. This is like even the height he gets and the spin, it's just, yeah, it's easily like one of the, wow, like a perfect crescendo to that.- Yes, yes. Okay, that has not pooched my action replay moment, thankfully. - Excellent, good.- So I think I'm either, if I'm gonna go macro, I'm gonna go knife fight in a tiny stairwell.- Oh, yeah.- Because I think that is a great sort of escalation in movie terms. You know, I don't know, I can't, I think there's some goons getting smashed up before that, but that's the first kind of bit where we, A, go to a different environment. I think it's a great use of an environment.- Yeah. - As we've said, they, you know, used every piece of the cow or whatever that phrase is, right? He's like, is it possible we could smash someone through the reception desk, where we will have to buy a new reception desk? I think, let's get a reception desk and smash someone through that. Great, can we go upstairs to near, outside the office? There's not much outside the office. Stairwell, let's do stairwell. I think that's absolutely great. On a micro level, I think, door knob. There is a door knob and I don't think, I don't think I've seen Death by Door Knob.- I- - In my, in all my years.- I have not either, no, no, no, no, no.- I don't think I'm very, I was delighted by the use of that door knob. Yeah, I think it was absolutely solid.- Excellent, yeah, Death by Door Knob's great. I also love the amount of swords that get broken over people. And those are thick, so like, I'm just like, God, I love this movie, yeah. Watch it guys. - Yeah, yeah.- If you, where's the, if you've listened to us and you haven't seen it, why?- I mean, yeah, I think I'll be listening to this podcast for over an hour. I assume you, you like me, I just listened to a podcast about a movie you really liked and wanna hear other nerds nerd out about it, right?(laughing) It's just an echo chamber of nerds nerding out about it. I mean, that's most podcasts, isn't it?- True. - Hey, did you, have you ever used Athletic Greens or One Sleep Mattress or one of those ice plunges, et cetera? Those are all the other podcasts, not this one.- Yeah, yeah, no.- The only other thing that I had written down, which I wanted to mention before we go was mirrors. This is like a technical thing. The whole flipping dojo covered in mirrors. I didn't once notice a boom operator or a camera guy. And genuinely-- - And I looked, yep.- I was being a dick about it as well a few times.(laughing)- No, that's one of my things. If there's a mirror, I will look for your camera operator in the background and you're right, didn't see a one.- And genuinely some of the shots, I'm like, that's pretty much like--- The kid was right behind him and there's mirrors all over the wall.- For a 90 degree angle, why can't I see that? Is there a budget for like CGing these out afterwards?- I think there is and I think maybe he knows enough people that he could probably pull a friend and be like,"Hey, can you help me, can I just mirror this guy out?"- Right, it's such a bold choice. I guess it's smart production just to be like,"Hey, the whole dojo gym is covered in mirrors'cause it's a dojo gym." Do I need to buy some two by fours and like cover all those over before you choose?- Yeah, cover those with like some, no, leave them there'cause it makes it look more visually interesting.- It really does, yeah. And I guess like whatever they did, again, it's a question for Brent Foster or a off the record production question that whatever they did, I saw no IMDB gaffes. In the final fight, the boom operator is clearly visible in the shot, no. Again, absolutely flawless. If you haven't seen, seek out life after fighting on whichever streaming service you have to hand. Andy, thank you so much for giving up your time.- Thank you.- What I think is extraordinarily for me, early hour of the day, and I also could not get the time difference right and turn up one hour early for this.- It's okay.- One hour early. So it's literally the night here and the morning there.- Yes, it is.- Time zones are incredible. And since moving to India, I found out that there are such things as half an hour time zones as well.- Oh my gosh, that would throw me, oh man. We can barely get a couple hours, right? Let alone if it was half hour, I'd be late all the time.- If people would like to also find/befriend/listen/ just check out your letterbox recommends, where do you point people these days?- Sure, I made all of my social media is easy. That's all the same. It's Andrew M. Gorham. Just look for the big nerd in a red shirt, grinning surrounded by Star Wars droids.- That's me.- Andrew M. Gorham, and you found it. Yeah, on everything. I made it easy. So yeah.- Love it. Hey, thank you so much for your time. It's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you. No guilty pleasures, only shameless enthusiasm incarnate. Mr. Andrew Gorham, if you want to say anything, get in touch with the podcast. I'm loathe to say do that on Twitter, but that is the only place where the podcast exists as a thing at Dodge This Pod. Realistically, you can find me on Instagram or threads, I guess, or wherever your favorite reach out is. That sounds weird.@simonfielder, simonfielder.com, etc, etc, etc. I also have a newsletter that I'm duty bound to plug at the end of this. A sub-stack newsletter called Froth, where I write about stuff, what I'm into and stuff, what I've made, e.g. this podcast, e.g. videos. I have made e.g. projects that I have appeared in or cultural discoveries slash queries and misunderstandings from a right comedic point of view as a 40 something white guy in Mumbai. You'll love it. Froth, you can sign up to that via my website or sub-stack. That brings us to the end of another episode of Dodge This. Andy, thank you once again. If it's possible to do so without annoying your family, please join me in screaming at the top of your lungs. Goodbye! Goodbye! He's absolutely nailed that.(upbeat music)(dramatic music)