The sequel Never Back Down: Revolt is introducing an age-old martial arts movie gimmick to the long-running series. The Never Back Down franchise began with the 2008 original, at the time when MMA was still a fairly new concept for action movies. Like the versatility required in MMA itself, the series has been very malleable from one film to the next.

The first three Never Back Down movies each had an MMA fight or tournament in their climactic acts. Of course, with each telling its own very different story, the movies have distinct arcs leading to the main showdown. Directed by Kellie Madison and set to arrive on November 16, Never Back Down: Revolt will bring an MMA competition into play too, but a way that the series has never done in the form of an underground fight club.

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In Revolt, Oliva Popica portrays a young woman who is kidnapped and placed into an underground tournament with other kidnapped competitors, overseen by the villainous Janek, played by MMA champion Michael Bisping, previously seen in Triple Threat. The first three Never Back Down movies kept their competitive fights legally sanctioned and public, so Revolt's approach is taking the series into much more shadowy territory with underground fighting — but it's also adding some other elements to it at the same time.

Never Back Down No Surrender Michael Jai White image

Never Back Down: Revolt is using a common trop from martial arts movies, but in a fresh new way. As mentioned above, the competitors in the underground tournament are kidnapped and forced to fight, bringing more illegal activity into the franchise in just one movie more than it ever has before. The premise adds another layer of danger and suspense to the fights — especially since the fighters aren't there by choice. Furthermore, the kidnapped competitors are all women, also entirely new for the series (with Jeeja Yanin being the franchise's only previous female fighter of note in Never Back Down: No Surrender). In all, Revolt is like no other installment of the series.

Underground fight clubs are a common trope in martial arts films, but despite being a bit of a cliche, they're still fun to see exploited to their fullest potential — especially when done well in movies like Muay Thai extraordinaire Tony Jaa's Ong Bak: The Thai WarriorRevolt is bringing this concept into a series that has never used it before, while also injecting a fresh angle of kidnapped competitors fighting for their freedom. It's definitely a change for the Never Back Down series, but the franchise has already gone from a high school kid working out anger issues, to a group of college boys preparing for a tournament under a seasoned veteran, to that very mentor re-igniting his own MMA career. Never Back Down: Revolt is raising the stakes for the series in a big way a little like the transition from the first to the second movies in the Best of the Best series, putting life, death, and freedom on the table with the old, trusted concept of an underground fight club.

NEXT: Never Back Down: The Martial Arts Movie Franchise Ranked, Worst To Best