Warrior - 戰士

Warrior (戰士) is an 2011 film. The movie stars Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton. The supporting cast includes Nick Nolte, Jennifer Morrison, and Frank Grillo.

Tom Hardy plays a ex-marine that's gone back home, named Tommy. Tommy's return home isn't warm or fuzzy. In fact, it's a shock to his formally abusive father, Paddy, played by Nick Nolte. Tommy joins a former boxing gym turned MMA gym around the corner to start working out. While there, Tommy knocks out one of the top 10 fighters in his weight class and it goes "viral". From that notoriety, he's asked to join a grand prix type tournament put on by the Tap Out folks. In another neighborhood, Paddy's other older son, Brendan is an school teacher trying to make ends meat. Brendan looks for a second job and ends up losing his primary job when he's beat up bad. Brendan was a former primetime MMA fighter that didn't have much success. Now, a bit older and in need of money, he travels the night circuits to make money. When he's about to lose his house to foreclosure, Brendan also joins the Grand Prix. It's only when the brackets are annouced that Brendan and Tommy see they're fighting each other.

Like many people in the 1990s, I rented and watch UFC 1 and UFC 2. They were such spectacles back then. Settling the age old questions of Karate vs. Sumo and so forth. However, when the grapplers took over, I quickly found it boring and stopped watching. However, face forward to the mid 2000s. Reality shows like the Ultimate Fighter and the IFL started to sprout up on cable. Eventually leading to EliteXC being on CBS. Since around 2007, I've be a regular follower. I follow MMA like I follow the NBA and NFL. I follow MMA more than MLB now. As I haven't had any martial arts training since elementary school, I am only a fan of MMA. But I am a very knowledgable fan. I pretty much can hang with any regular MMA fan for hours. The movie from the MMA front was pretty entertaining. It was actually pretty realistic and they had true life MMA fighters in some of the fights.

In all, the movie was very good. It's an story of two brothers that had a family tragedy, moved on in their lives, and are trying to reconcile their relationship in the aftermath of a reformed abusive alcoholic father. The MMA just adds to the uniqueness of the film and the glue to the overall storyline.