Imagine a middle aged guy saying he wants to become a kickboxer and puts a whole year into training to beat a guy who is 12 years younger and has been kickboxing since age 16 and have won 10 professional fights. It is pretty much a movie story with a movie star. But why can't it be a real story with a movie star? Why does movie stars always have to portray another person on a screen? Why fight the real fight when you can have it choreographed?

Idrissa Akuna "Idris" Elba is mostly known as an actor for most of us. It's easy to assume that he'd be a producer too. Some may even know him as a DJ and a rapper. But I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that the guy is a professional kickboxer. I mean this guy is a PRO!

While the whole media landscape is throwing a fit because of the zillionth random thing to get offended about I stumbled across this documentary Idris Elba: Fighter. I didn't knew much about the story of Idris Elba: The Kickboxer and just casually started the episode 1 thinking this could be one of those "Celebrity XYZ Tries XXXX" thing. After few minutes in I was thinking what the hell, this is real and how come the media or just anybody doesn't talk about this. People talk about Idris Elba's movie roles and controversies etc. But here we have something raw.

You can only truly see the truth about a person at the edge of that person's life. It could be the person achieving it all, loosing it all or just being pushed beyond the limit. Idris Elba: Fighter is a true story of pushing Idris to the limits and not a single headline or hashtag is getting viral about what this movie star achieved. Even Wikipedia doesn't have a page on the documentary about this 44 year old who became a professional kickboxer in 12 months.

Well it's not really 12 months. Idris had to go through a surgery and then he also had to shoot Dark Tower for 12 weeks while he was training. The trailer looked coll but I haven't watched the movie yet. But for those who did: Idris was training kickboxing while he was filming.

How was the Documentary?

It was 3 episodes each ~43 minutes and it had a story of a inspiring box office hit. But it was only a bunch of guys (and Idris himself) filming real life, real training, real fights, Idris doing Vlogs and people giving interviews. So this was far from a cinematic experience. It was more of a poorly directed personal experience and if you are a fan of Idris; this is the place you get to know the person.

Though it was mainly about kickboxing, Idris also briefly talks about how he got into acting and how he was motivated and how he dealt with his family and to him kickboxing was something similar. He just went for it and with blood, sweat and tears he earned the respect. Nobody took him seriously at the beginning and even his friends respectably asked "Are you joking?" and at many times Idris was having his own doubts too. The 3 episodes taking little over 2 hours only had selected moments out of 12 months of filming. I don't know what was left out on the cutting room. But what was on screen revealed many things as it was following Idris from London to Japan to Cape Town (South Africa) to France to Cuba to Thailand. Being rich and famous has its advantages too.

There were many struggles including a surgery he had to face at the earliest stages of training. But Idris did get the best of the best trainers and he spared with world champions and Olympic winners and actually managed to EARN his respect. But the training part didn't come so easily and it was intense with calm bits like meditation and pain tolerance training in Japan where Idris actually learned to break wood.

How were the fights?

There were only 2 main fights. One was Idris fighting an amateur kickboxing champion and the other one was the big fight with a big crowd. The camera work wasn't really good and everything was edited in the traditional documentary style. So much of the impact was lost. But even after all those drawbacks, both fight had some real tension. I'm not hyping it because "It happened for real". Idris had a great underdog story. He was 43 and had 12 only months but he also had the best trainers. I won't say the outcomes of the fights. The drama wasn't as good as scripted scenes but there were some dramatic moments that really reminded me of Shōnen anime. The fights won't disappoint but don't expect a cinematic movie. It's a bunch of guys with cameras and Idris putting his heart and soul into a craft for 12 months going through hell.

My complains

Basically it just feels a lot like a generic documentary when it comes to style. Some interview segments seemed like they were just made for the documentary and seemed a little less authentic. It fights were presented like it was something on news instead of seriously capturing the essence of the immense pressure, anxiety, 12 months of training, self-doubts, personal growth and it all coming down to just 6 minutes in a ring. There was something really great and it didn't really deliver that 12 months getting concentrated into 6 minutes part of the story. Actually it didn't take all 6 of the minutes but hey, SPOILERS!!!

Bigger things and greater accomplishments have happened on this planet. But genuine hard work must be respected. These days we have issues so great a celebrity is delivering such heartfelt and powerfully emotional, deeply personal matters that they can't even take their eyes away from the cards they are reading off of. Idris Elba should be applauded for actually starting to train to become a professional kickboxer at age 43 and going through the entire process despite already being a popular actor. There are many things that cannot be faked in this world and those things should be respected. Everybody is talking about a potential 007 Idris. But that's not much of a story. Idris Elba: Fighter is the real story.

I hope I brought you something that practically slipped through everybody in our perverted media and news reporting landscape. The few celebrities who are putting some honest work must be respected or we'd only get more of these vanity stars propping up non-issues.

Lastly, if I got you interested in Kickboxing you can try Boyka: Undisputed starring Scott Adkins which has way more strategy, tactics and heart than you might actually expect. It's on NETFLIX.

Happy steeming and please share for more people to know.