ComingSoon.net has your exclusive first look at writer/director David Mamet’s Redbelt, which Sony Pictures Classics will release in 2008. The mixed martial arts film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Alice Braga, Tim Allen, Emily Mortimer, Rodrigo Santoro, Rebecca Pidgeon and Randy Couture.
Ejiofor plays Mike Terry, the chief instructor at the Southside Jiu-jitsu Academy. Although a talented fighter, he refuses to compete in professional bouts: “Competition weakens the fighter.” Instead he trains dedicated students in the art of self-defense: bodyguards, cops, soldiers. At his brother-in-law’s club one evening, Mike saves a famous action star (Allen) from a severe beating. His defense of Frank leads to a job in the film industry, but other events conspire to force Mike to participate in a prize fight. An American samurai film set in the world of mixed martial arts, David Mamet’s Redbelt, is a story about the limits of a single man’s integrity.
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