The holiday season is here, and there’s no excuse for the last weeks of 2022 to wrap up without the proper quota of action-movie butt-kicking being met.
The upcoming action thriller “As Good As Dead” is on hand to do exactly that, with Michael Jai White leading and writing the film under the direction of R. Ellis Frazier.
“As Good As Dead” is also close to being as good as here, with the movie hitting theaters and digital platforms on December 16th, check out the trailer below!
“As Good As Dead” is a Mentor-Protector Story
In “As Good As Dead”, Michael Jai White plays ex-cop Bryant, who comes to be the martial arts mentor of a troubled kid named Oscar (Luca Oriel).
Unfortunately, Bryant’s young martial arts apprentice uses some distinct techniques taught by his teacher in an MMA competition that leads to some old enemies of Bryant’s tracking the two down.
Now it’s up to Bryant to protect Oscar and defeat his returning enemies in order to protect the life he’s built for himself.
Michael Jai White Continues Behind the Camera
Michael Jai White has been a uniquely strong screen presence since 1997’s “Spawn”, while his decades as a martial artist have put him in the center of hits like “Undisputed 2: Last Man Standing”, “Blood and Bone”, “Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown” and “Never Back Down: No Surrender”.
With “As Good As Dead”, this actioner is another notch on Mike’s creative work belt behind the camera, with Mike penning the script and the movie co-produced by his production company Jaigantic Studios.
Mike’s skills as a storyteller interweaving his vast knowledge of martial arts have served his directorial efforts well in the “Never Back Down” series, “Black Dynamite” and the upcoming “The Outlaw Johnny Black”, which seems likely to be the case again with “As Good As Dead”. Speaking of which…
“As Good As Dead” Features Some Unique Martial Arts
The action scenes seen in the trailer for “As Good As Dead” are as plentiful and as sharp as any Michael Jai White has ever done, but the discipline Bryant passes on to Oscar really stands out.
With a unique fighting stance and guarding position using the elbows, Bryant seems to have passed on some especially lethal techniques to Oscar (which one can further see in Bryant asking Oscar not to use them in competition, to no avail).
Judging from the emphasis on elbows, Oscar’s newfound fighting style could be blending elements of 52 Blocks aka the Jailhouse Rock and Keysi Fighting Method.
Outside of period appearances in “Lethal Weapon”, “Tom Yum Goong 2”, and “The Dark Knight” trilogy, neither has been seen all that often in action movies, so “As Good As Dead” could be centralizing a new hybrid-style with core elements of 52 Blocks and Keysi as its foundation.
Blending fighting styles in such a creative way is what martial arts fans live for, and is just one of the many elements to make “As Good As Dead” an excellent holiday season popcorn blast for action lovers!
