A businessman, Tsuda, runs into a childhood friend, Kojima, on the subway. Kojima is working as a semiprofessional boxer. Tsuda soon begins to suspect that Kojima might be having an affair with his fiancée Hizuru. After an altercation, Tsuda begins training rigorously himself, leading to an extremely bloody, violent confrontation.
TOKYO FIST 東京フィスト, 동경의 주먹, 东京铁拳, 東京鐵拳, Токийский кулак, Tokyo Porrada
Canada
Japan
Netherlands
South Korea
Canada
Japan
Netherlands
South Korea
Wake, work, eat, sleep. Wake, work, eat, sleep. Wake, work, eat, sleep.
This is the life.
Wake, work, eat, sleep. Wake, work, eat, sleep. Wake, work, eat, sleep.
This is what all my education was for. All the struggle my parents went through to raise me and all the money spent to turn me into a productive adult.
Wake, work, eat, sleep. Wake, work, eat, sleep. Wake, work, eat, sleep.
This is the dream, what human civilization has led up to for millennia, all to ensure that I can be placated into living out the rest of my life in this loop. The dream is to spend your day working overtime in an office culture that strangles your individuality to…
I really liked the 2 acts of this movie... then act 3 came along and totally eviscerated me. Explosive gore and chaotic boxing mayhem intertwined with Tsukamoto’s very specific Tetsuo-esque body horror and it’s pretty damn unforgettable. Tokyo Fist may very well be the closest thing to a Boxing horror film? Perhaps, but however you look at it this is most definitely another fucking face-melter from Shinya Tsukamoto.
Power systems within power systems, oppression subjugated by the oppressed. Even within the trio who seek to break out of late-capitalist confines is systematic oppression still exerted, the realm of boxing a hyper-masculine domain which welcomes the men but not the woman. Radicalism when without structure turns to an animalism that, while still seeking to disrupt power structures, can create its own by taking root in already-existing learned intolerance: Tsuda rebels against his soulless corporate rat-race by "manning up" to feel like he has any power in his life while Kojima works towards radicalizing Tsuda; both deny Hizuru any agency of her own even while she must exist in relation to these two and their life-altering influence. Boxing offers a…
tsukamoto's expressionist lighting, gonzo editing and jolting, untethered handheld style applied to an ostensible masculine boxing drama where feelings of inadequacy and rage about relationships and a modern, dilapidated tokyo is expressed through pounding on each others bodies. only tsukamoto being tsukamoto takes that to its logical horror extreme and films this idiosyncratic love triangle as a mass of sweat and blood surrounded by concrete and steel in claustrophobic, delirious frames that eventually explode into what feels like a euphoric montage of mutilation and gushing blood. a tangible emotional release from the structures and bodies we're trapped in.
we’re all animals trapped in a building. and you can’t fight a building. you can’t beat your job into a bloody pulp. you can’t punch ennui in the face. and that’s why we kill each other: we’re all animals in a mechanical world, trapped in a building, backing each other into a corner. and when the animals tear each others throats out, the building will always win.
“what is kojima to you?”
“i wouldn’t mind if he beat me to death.”
disgusting, destructive, and deserving of every wince it solicits at a ferocious velocity, tokyo fist materializes the cyberpunk mutilation of one’s wearing sanity. an intoxicating grime brazened by unfulfilled souls in desolation, its filmic love-triangle inhales pleasure from the most fucked up pain—unleashing edgelord mayhem within the claustrophobic
homogeneity inherit of a metropolis. tightly packaging bestial rage against the geometric reflections of an industrial cityscape, shinya tsukamoto’s hyperkinetic cinematography draws vinegary sweat from bleeding vessels of masculinity. metallic bloodshed, glistening beneath the full moon and neon hues, establishing a sui generis nightmare of gore incarnated well beyond maggots and guts. totally for the faint hearted!
A pretty unique twist on the sports movie from the same sick mind that brought us Tetsuo. And, while it's not as graphic and vicious, it's quite violent, not just in and in the sequences outside the ring, but also with the editing, which seems almost like you're being lashed out by it. The cinematography is excellent. The story is fine, however I would have preferred a more coherent narrative as this was just too random for my liking.
All in all, although conceptually fascinating and there was a lot to admire about it, its lack of anything cohesive and going fully for the avant-garde, in my opinion, it wasn't as great as the hype for this movie over here led me to believe.
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Nausicaa
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Tokyo Fist
It's a big call, but Tokyo Fist is probably my favourite Japanese film. I find myself at a bit of a loss to describe why I love it so much. Tsukamoto is an important director to me. It was Tetsuo that showed me how exciting contemporary Japanese cinema could be. I feel that Tokyo Fist is his masterpiece.
Clearly extraordinarily personal with its presentation of salaryman life (Tsukamoto worked a 9 to 5 job in an advertising firm for several years), the casting of his younger brother (who is brilliant and terrifying), and Tsukamoto's own performance, dripping with sweat and rage. Tsukamoto manages to create something both absurd yet entirely relatable and real.
As you'd expect, the film is visually…
Dissecting man from a hypothesis of animalistic dehumanization, the brutally surreal journey involves an intentionally ambivalent and uneven exercise in visual splendor experimentation, ranging from minimalistic to impressionistic, featuring intimate tracking shots and neo-noir coloring and shadows displaying human impulses as an unstoppable chain of violent consequences. Practical special effects and stop-motion marvels with black-and-white nightmares and flashbacks and Chu Ishikawa's always heavy-metal-esque soundtrack abound as the infamous auteur's trademarks and Tokyo, displayed in full detail from a urbanized perspective, serves as the physical background where fantasies surpass the violent reality of the protagonists.
This is pretty much one of the best modern Japanese movies ever made and I cannot simply describe it well enough, but I gave it a…
coolest movie ever imagine being David Fincher and making Fight Club when there was already a way better “office employee by day, fighter by night” movie made four years earlier
I'm not even sure if I can see straight after Tokyo Fist. What the fuck. My mouth was completely agape those last 20 minutes or so — I was just sort of sitting there stunned. While the entire movie was your standard Tsukamoto goodness, that third act was something else entirely. It joins the Stargate Sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey and Part 8 from Twin Peaks: The Return as some of the most kinetic and visually audacious filmmaking I've ever seen. I wish I could write more right now, but I'm still reeling from the whole experience. Tsukamoto is in a league of his own.
Edit: Very tempted to raise this one to a to a 5 star. Still might.
