Jake Tyler’s (Sean Faris) the new kid in town with a troubled past. He has recently moved to

Orlando, Florida with his family to support his younger brother’s shot at a professional tennis career. Jake was a star athlete on the football team at home, but in this new city he is an outsider with a reputation for being a quick tempered brawler.

Making an attempt to fit in, at the invitation of a flirtatious classmate, Baja (Amber Heard), Jake goes to a party where he is unwittingly pulled into a fight with a bully named Ryan McCarthy (Cam Gigandet). While he is defeated and humiliated in the fight, a classmate introduces himself to Jake and tells him about the sport known as Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). He sees a star in Jake and asks that he meet with his mentor, Jean Roqua (played by Djimon Hounsou).

It is immediately apparent to Jake that MMA is not street fighting, but rather an art form he wants to master. Roqua will take Jake under his wing, but it is up to Jake to find the patience, discipline, willingness and reason within him to succeed. For Jake, there is much more at stake than mere victory. His decision will not just settle a score; it will define who he is.

If the movie sounds familiar to “The Karate Kid,” you wouldn’t be wrong. Obviously they aren’t the same movie, but they have a lot of the same type of people. You have the current champion and tough guy, a girl that is wanted by both main characters, the outsider with a troubled past, and the teacher with a mysterious background. As I said, the movies are definitely related.

In any case, with a solid soundtrack and many attractive young adults with their shirts off, I’m sure the movie will play very well to the demographic it’s aiming for – teenagers and college students. While the film definitely won’t win any awards, I think it’s going to do a lot better than people think.

So to help promote the movie, I got to interview Sean Faris (the main star) and Djimon Hounsou – who is his teacher of MMA in the movie. Both talked about what led them to this project and both gave updates about what is coming up.

But before getting the interviews, here’s a link to the movie clips in case you missed them. again, "Never Back Down" opens this Friday.

Djimon Hounsou

• What led him to this project

• Has he trained in MMA before

• What was the experience like making the movie

• Working as a model for Calvin Klein talk

• Push talk – his next movie (it’s sci-fi)

• Has he ever thought about doing a TV show

• How quickly does he know he wants to play a character when reading a script

Sean Faris

• How did he come to the project and what attracted him to the role

• Karate Kid talk

• Training talk

• What was the easiest thing and the hardest thing he did for training

• What does he come up – talks about Forever Strong

• Amsterdam talk