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Such a frustrating disappointment

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The first ten minutes are awesome. The movie is very strong, but the quality varies a lot along its development until its bad end. Both the fast paced training scenes and the oppressive Tokyo city footage are very nice. Though, the bizarreness of the story bores. This is a live action film with an anime aesthetics (for anime fans perhaps the movie pleases more). It could be a great movie if it had developed better the main character's ordinary life as a white collar, the chaos of the city (the story does not explore the interesting way the town is shown), the dangerous boxer who tattooes the number of defeated challengers on his shoulder. Less emphasis in body horror and sneezing blood would also contribute to a more satisfactory outcome. The director's brother should be substituted by a better actor. A different and better story for the love triangle would be necessary too. To conclude, the director/writer/actor Shin'ya Tsukamoto has the skills, but lacks good taste and makes bad decisions.

The comments of others comparing this movie to Raging Bull, Rocky and Fight Club could be misguided. This movie could have been about almost anything and the boxing is just a plot device . . . but a great one!!! . This movie is about people - most other movies are only about characters. The violence helps show just how angry a boring insurance guy (?) can get when something simple blows his world to pieces. It taunts the white-collar viewer by showing a white-collar man's wife getting easily tempted away by a physically muscular man. And the way she decends into perversity is a delightful rebuttal to the anodyne hold her husband had on her. Seeing a meaty, violent boxer intrude into a sterile, hideous modern existence/relationship forces us viewers to consider where our own humanist allegiances lie. The film says things about humanity that other films don't have the guts to say and rings totally true. If you can stomach the jagged aggressiveness of a movie but want the genuine article, see this film. I haven't had such a rough - but rewarding - ride since I last watched "In the Company of Men".

For people who are interested in Japanese culture and the Japanese way of thinking, movies are a good opportunity to learn about both. Don't start with this one, though! I suggest that you already have a certain knowledge about Japan and are accustomed to Eastern style sex and violence in movies before you see "Tokyo Fist". If you are ready to see it, a dynamic and unique movie from the director of "Tetsuo / Tetsuo 2" awaits you.

I've seen Tsukamoto's Tetsuo films but here he has found a way to be almost as outre but infinitely more accessible and coherent. The film is about 3 people (two men and a woman caught in a triangle) whose lives suddenly become charged with transformative psychosexual and psychoviolent energies revolving around the world of Japanese boxing (but it is nothing like a 'fight' film). Actor/Editor/Cinematographer/Director Tsukamoto has found a way to give a high impact, extremely rhythmic (in both time and space) look and feel to his ideas that is very original and striking. The spatial rhythm of the lead characters boring ordinary 'day' life passed in high rise apartment complexes and the incredibly kinetic temporal rhythm of his alternate 'night' life provides a terrific cinematic contrast of these two worlds. The film is rather short and gains immensely thereby in both concentration and focus. I, too, thought about Raging Bull at times but probably Tsukamoto is more akin to David Cronenberg (the new flesh) in his concerns, not his approach, than Scorsese. It may not be for the squeamish, but it is strong, brilliant film making which you should definitely try.