Director and a playwright Shuji Terayama was considered one of Japan’s most productive and provocative creative artists, yet despite the filmmaker’s acclaim he’s rarely talked about nowadays. The opportunity’s there for film fans to explore his catalogue of work, and luckily, Radiance Films have given a Blu-ray world premiere to The Boxer, which is considered his most accessible feature.
The film opens with a black-and-white scene as a boxer makes his way towards the ring for his match, while people pass by him on the other side, including a badly beaten boxer – a possible harbinger of what may come. The sombre music playing adds to the moody tone, as does the moment of silence for a recently deceased boxer, and this is all a precursor to the fight, and before the combat ensues the colour seeps into the screen. We’re then introduced to Hayabusa (Bunta Sugawara), a former boxing champion who quit the sport in the middle of a match, and in the aftermath of this bizarre decision also left his wife and daughter to live in a messy apartment with his Doberman. Tragedy soon strikes when an accident caused by young forklift operator Tenma (Kentaro Shimizu), takes his brother’s life in a workplace accident. Tenma has boxing aspirations but trainers aren’t interested because of his limp, and determined to not let his disability get in the way of his dream, he begs Hayabusa to take him on as an apprentice – something that may allow the old fighter to achieve redemption.
One would expect the two leads to be united by a life-affirming reason, but the unifying point is actually hatred, with Hayabusa taking his change in life hard and isolating himself as he grows too hard-headed to accept potential happiness, the question central to him being why he quit mid-match and allowed his opponent to overwhelm him. Did he fall out of love with the sport or was it an early retirement before his worsening eyesight could take the decision out of his hands, and could he have accepted that victory would leave him nowhere to go except being remembered in death? These question are up for interpretation, but Sugawara’s performance sells it all well.
A curious decision sees the fights shot in a documentary style, which allows the impact of each blow to be felt.
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Meanwhile, Tenma is struggling to pursue his dreams and prove that his disability isn’t a hinderance to his potential, but others don’t see it that way, and he’s angry at the world for taking away his passion before he even had a chance to try. What sticks in the memory is a heart-breaking post-match scene in which Tenma grapples with losing a match, but having grown no closer to realising his dream, and despite his attempt to plaster a smile on his face, the hurt keeps breaking through the façade.
A curious decision sees the fights shot in a documentary style, which allows the impact of each blow to be felt and this, complete with the familiar training montage, adds to the feeling that The Boxer was made with a true passion for the sport. The story hits the traditional beats, but it’s a little distracting how overly familiar and uninspired these can feel when the stronger moments show how this film stands apart – leaving the film feeling of the same quality as Rocky without feeling like knock-off.
What inspires more confidence is the ending, where it becomes clear that devoting our time to something doesn’t stop the world moving around us. Whether we’re putting passion into our pastimes or dwelling on our failings, we can’t ensure that others will wait for us to see them as people needing aid, and this helps The Boxer to resonate with a wider audience, hopefully becoming the start of people discovering an underseen filmmaker’s work.
The Boxer is available now from Radiance Films
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