In the recent action film, “The Raid: Redemption,” the film’s hero is punched, kicked, thrown through walls and tables, slashed, driven into the ground and shot at. It’s unflinchingly brutal, but in typical Hollywood fashion, he fights through the punches and the pain to defeat his enemies, wins the fight for his noble cause and, most importantly, entertains the throngs of testosterone-filled young men watching in theaters across the country.

But the movies are not reality. While combatants in action movies can take punch after punch and keep fighting, many fights in the real world can end with just a single hit. And that one punch can end a life, put a person in prison and ruin the lives of families forever – not quite the ending we’re accustomed to.

Many films amp up the action to appeal to the audience, unaware of its consequences, but Madison resident Steve Kokette’s documentary “One Punch Homicide,” which will be showing at the Oriental Theatre on Thursday, April 19, focuses almost entirely on the tragic results of a fight.

“The thing that inspires me more than anything is thinking that ‘One Punch Homicide’ will help reduce the amount of violence there is,” Kokette said.

The documentary chronicles the real-life cases of homicides caused by a single punch. In order to tell the stories, Kokette interviewed several inmates who were convicted of one-punch homicides, in addition to several people related to the victims of such crimes. Shots of about 30 victims’ gravestones are also interspersed throughout the film in conjunction with short antidotes about each incident.

The idea to make a documentary came to Kokette in 2008 after reading about a one-punch homicide in Madison.

“It made me, as you would think, feel sorry for the victim and the loved ones of the victim,” Kokette said. “But I also felt sorry for the guy who did the hitting. He was 19 years old, and who thinks they’re going to kill somebody with one punch?”

Less than a week later, the filmmaker read another article about a one-punch homicide, and the idea for a documentary began to form in Kokette’s mind. After doing some research, he discovered that one-punch homicides were much more common than he expected.

Kokette decided the issue needed to be addressed in the hopes of halting violence.

The first step was interviewing the prisoners convicted of killing a person with one punch. In some cases, however, the states, including Wisconsin and Hawaii, refused to let the inmates talk about their crimes to Kokette’s camera.

“Their feeling was that they did not want the interview to happen because it might upset the victim’s families if they were to even see the video,” Kokette said.

The states were not the only ones anxious about interviewing the inmates. Before his first prisoner interview, Kokette was nervous about the experience. As the interviews progressed, however, Kokette’s fears were alleviated.

“They weren’t really intimidating or frightening or anything like that,” Kokette said. “In all five of the interviews, the guys were like someone you would meet anywhere. There probably aren’t any people more remorseful behind bars.”

The inmates’ stories also showed Kokette the tragic reality of their crimes. These weren’t vicious killers expecting to end a life.

“All five of them were stunned,” Kokette said. “None of them thought that they would kill someone. I believe all five of them had previous experiences where they had thrown first punches. One of them, Frank, said that he had been punching people since he was a kid, and he had never even heard of anybody getting put in the hospital or anything like that.”

Kokette also interviewed several of the victims’ families for the documentary. While some relatives declined to be in the film, others wanted to share their story and help Kokette’s goal to reduce violence. One of the parents of a killed Australian boy even asked that the footage of his son’s one punch death be shown to the public in the film. Kokette incorporated the video into the film, but he admits he was hesitant.

“I thought more about that than any other thing that was in the work,” Kokette said. “There are those people out there who think that we shouldn’t be showing young people this kind of film.”

One of the big factors in showing the footage was a research study Kokette found that said the average American, by the time they are 21-years old, has seen 200,000 deaths on film.

“My feeling is that if kids are growing up seeing that many fake deaths, it might be a wise thing to show one that’s real,” Kokette stated.

The film’s website does note that viewers will be told when the clip will be shown so they can choose to look away. The filmmaker, however, believes that by showing the ugliness and reality of fights and violence, young people will realize the true effect of a punch. Kokette notes that a similar technique is commonly found in anti-cigarette ads and could be used to curb violence.

“I participated in a study where they simply showed cigarette smokers a really frightening film of former cigarette smokers who could only lay in bed and breathe,” Kokette said. “I don’t think I had a cigarette for two months after that, so maybe we should be using those types of tactics more often.”

So far, audiences seem to have taken well to Kokette’s film. In one showing, Kokette recalled a former Marine, who admitted to throwing the first punch several times in his life, vowed to refrain from throwing the first punch ever again.

Testimonials like those from everyday people bring hope to Kokette’s goal of showing the true, often tragic impact a single punch can have.