After three years in the making, mixed martial arts (MMA) documentary “Fight Life” premiered at the Roxie Theater on Jan. 20. The film was shown to two sold out audiences that evening, displaying the sacrifices, passion and dedication made in the lives of professional fighters.
Director James Z. Feng and producer James Shih are avid fans of the once-underground sport and were looking for documentaries and films that captivated it in detail.
When they realized that there wasn’t such material out there on the subject, Feng decided to make the documentary.
“We started making this documentary because we felt that there was a void as far as films about mixed martial arts,” said Shih. “We started to really get into the sport and we started to read some books about the sport and we just felt that this is a very compelling story and James Feng […] his neighbor was a mixed martial arts fighter and when he heard that, he thought, ‘Oh hey, let me check out what you do.’ ”
For Feng, this is his first feature-length film and first documentary. Having done short films previously, Feng made it clear that his first feature wasn’t supposed to be a documentary, though he couldn’t turn down the opportunity when it came.
“It takes a lot of money to make a feature-length movie. I think for me the resources were there for this one,” he explained. “I knew a lot of the fighters and I knew I could afford to make a film like this. I’m really passionate about the subject.”
While the film states that there are nearly 25,000 professional MMA fighters in the world today, it also didn’t hide the statistics of the hardships many of them have as well.
The film explained how many of these fighters train five hours a day, five days a week and 11 months a year. It also says that a fighter may even make as little as $11,000 per year as their yearly salary and, as a result, about 68 percent of fighters don’t have health insurance.
For Feng, finding the right fighters to open up about their lives was essential. As a result, he got many earnest fighters on board, such as Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighter Jake Shields and newcomer Lyle Beerbohm.
“They liked my project and so they jumped in and said ‘Hey, let’s do this!’” Feng related. “So literally, I just showed up at the gym one day after I told their representatives that I’d be there.”
Audience members watched as the documentary followed Shields all over the Bay Area practicing at gyms and spoke on how time-consuming his work is and how it affects his family life.
Beerbohm, along with his parents, told his personal story through the documentary of how he was once a meth addict and, upon being released from jail, made the decision to become a professional fighter.
After being asked what he learned from making the film, Shih revealed how effective a documentary is at revealing personal and private moments, as opposed to a narrative film.
“Fight Life” incorporates these moments beautifully, such as when Shields spends quality time with his young daughter and when Beerbohm is put on an IV drip after dehydrating himself so much.
“For a documentary, it’s interesting because a lot of it is about relationships. You’re asking people for their time and letting them into your lives,” he explained. “What you’re selling to the audience are very private moments, whereas in a narrative film, you’re creating fictional moments. I just think relationships are important in any medium but definitely I think for documentaries they are exposing themselves.”
“Fight Life” received a strong response from its San Francisco audience. Feng was even presented with a certificate of appreciation from a representative of the San Francisco mayor and Board of Supervisors.
Already the film will be screened for a week in Portland, Oregon in early February, and Shih expressed his hope for it to be screened in other major cities as well.
