Trailer for ‘Fighting’

I just stumbled across a trailer for what looks to be 2009’s NEVER BACK DOWN, or perhaps more accurately the Hollywood version of Jacky Wu Jing’s FATAL CONTACT. It’s a mainstream underground fight movie from producer Kevin Misher, one of the producers behind THE RUNDOWN.

The movie is simply called FIGHTING and stars STEP UP’s Channing Tatum as a counterfeiter in New York City, recruited by a veteran scam artist played by Terrence Howard into the world of underground street fighting.

This will be Tatum’s first major screen fighting role. He has training in kung fu although by the looks of the trailer it appears that he relied largely on Western street fighting techniques to fit this role.

It’s only the second feature film for director Dito Montiel who previously impressed critics in 2006 with his indie coming-of-age drama A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS, starring Robert Downey Jr.

World-class sanshou fighting champion Cung Le appears in the film ahead of his role as “Marshall Law” in the live-action TEKKEN film, also expected to be released later this year.

Stunt and fight choreography for FIGHTING was handled by Hollywood stunt veteran Mike Gunther. His stuntman credits include MARSHAL LAW, THE TUXEDO, CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE, and THE MATRIX RELOADED. He was also fight and/or stunt coordinator on Jean-Claude Van Damme’s IN HELL, UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION and THE ADVENTURES OF JOHNNY TAO. The latter is an indie family actioner that we have covered before on this site.

FIGHTING has an awful title but looks mildly promising as, for lack of a better description, an underground brawler flick. This has become something of a subgenre in action cinema and has been popular among genre fans ever since Van Damme starred in BLOODSPORT in 1988. Countless direct-to-video movies have been made since and now it looks like the subgenre is making a comeback of sorts.

FIGHTING opens in theaters April 29th, courtesy of Rogue Pictures.

Tags: Cung Le, Fighting (2009), Mike Gunther, upcoming, Videos