Tokyo FistWhen obsession takes hold, everything else on the periphery dissolves into darkness; the same happens when you get a concussion. Tokyo Fist is a violent drama about a mild-mannered salesman named Tsuda Yoshiharu (Shinya Tsukamoto), who slaves away by day and comes home to his kindly girlfriend, Hizuru (Kahori Fujii), when the day is done. One day, he crosses paths with an old acquaintance named Kojima Takuji (Kōji Tsukamoto), who boxes at a local club, and lives not too far from Tsuda and Hizuru's apartment. Tsuda suspects Kojima has ulterior motives in visiting him, and after he comes on to Hizuru, all three sink into a complicated quagmire of revenge and violence.
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Like many films by Shinya Tsukamoto, Tokyo Fist is a movie about transformation. It's clear from the start that Tsuda feels small and pointless in his job, and even in his relationship with Hizuru. He peddles non-specific products and breaks his back doing cold calls, only to come home and loaf on the sofa with his girlfriend watching TV. What might be most horrifying about Tokyo Fist is just how aptly Tsukamoto nails this everyday malaise that afflicts so many of us. How different does Tsuda's life look from ours here? The change starts after Kojima visits his apartment without an invitation. Tsuda remembers Kojima, but he withholds the reasons that he dislikes his erstwhile chum from Hizuru. This is the first of many indications of a lack of trust, and as a result, the rift in their relationship has already started to widen. When Hizuru shares a photo of her from a magazine after a modeling gig, Tsuda's jealousy pushes her away with a hurtful comment that implies that she is unfaithful. His apology isn't heartfelt, and is given just to quell the argument--a trend that continues until Hizuru grows sick of his false humility. When Kojima drops by unannounced, Tokyo Fist frames their interaction to look like it will be the start of an affair, yet Hizuru sternly tells Kojima that she does not want his advances after he kisses her. But when the weak-willed Tsuda learns of the kiss, he believes Kojima instead of Hizuru about what happened, driving her from his life. The enraged yet feeble Tsuda tries to threaten the skilled boxer in his own home, only to be greeted with a violent assault that hospitalizes him. Time passes until Tsuda can return to the world again, but the memory of that event forever alters all of them. Kojima relishes Tsuda's descent into anger, and constantly antagonizes him into abandoning everything else for revenge. Even Hizuru takes to piercing herself in various ways, starting with her ears, and moving to other parts of her anatomy--she even gets a bold tattoo on her arm which she keeps from Tsuda until she reveals it at the height of an argument. All three have set upon a path of anger that only seems to lead to more and more suffering.
It isn't until later into Tokyo Fist that some semblance of backstory is introduced, but it is deliberately thin, since the real meat of the story is in the way that this dysfunctional threesome attack one another, mentally and physically. Tsuda and Kojima were schoolmates, and a girl who Kojima knew was killed by some gang members under a freeway overpass, impaled on some stray rebar. After discovering her body, Kojima and Tsuda vowed to learn how to fight the attackers and get revenge before the cops could arrest the killers. Yet their plan could have been cribbed from an arcade game like "Final Fight", and is as impractical as it is reckless. Kojima pursued his path of revenge and learned how to become a boxer, while Tsuda embraced a life of complacency instead. Kojima uses violence to try to reach Tsuda, and make him into the man he claimed that he wanted to become. Both men use testosterone and machismo as a mask for their own doubts and emotional weakness. The irony of Kojima's misguided attempts to reach Tsuda through violence predate Fight Club by a few years, and both explore toxic masculinity. There are moments suggesting that this backstory will be revisited throughout Tokyo Fist--that the film will pick up the thread after this reveal. New characters--like a tougher boxing trainer named Ohizumi (Naoto Takenaka), or a rival boxer who devastates one of Kojima's colleagues--are introduced, enticing the audience to connect these new characters with Tsuda and Kojima's past. In another movie, this would be a golden opportunity to tie up that loose end of a plot, and give "resolution" to these men...give "meaning" to their struggle. But Tsukamoto resists the temptation to package the story with a neat bow, and instead commits wholly to the revelatory destruction Tsuda, Kojima, and Hizuru inflict upon one another. Their reasons no longer have anything to do with the past, but with their respective, bloody journeys of self-exploration.
Tokyo Fist uses boxing as a metaphor for facing down our inner "shadows", subsequently revealing who we are beneath the skin...and the meat and bone. Tsuda becomes embittered and even more jealous, verbally degrading Hizuru and taking up boxing himself solely out of a drive for revenge. He becomes increasingly cruel, even assaulting a fellow boxer who was sparring with him just to drive home to Kojima that he's going to give him the same treatment. Hizuru never comes across as weak, but she becomes aggressively independent after thing start to change, leading to her punching ventilation shafts as she walks through an alley, brimming with rage, and coldly manipulating both men by repeatedly visiting Kojima. Conversely, Kojima seems to become afflicted with doubts and anxiety, even considering weaseling out of a big match that could make or break his career as a boxer. The violence in Tokyo Fist is intense, and filled with moments of explosive bloodspray that transcends absurdity. When Hizuru pierces herself again and again, she unwittingly resurrects the young girl whose death set Tsuda and Kojima on their paths. That bleak overpass becomes a church for her and Tsuda, as they play out rituals that leave them with their own brand of stigmata. And when Kojima finally faces off and triumphs over the boxer everyone's afraid of, the ordeal has physically altered him to the point that the audience at the match is overcome by stunned silence. He has let the violence consume him so totally, that his wounds give him the look of an actual monster. By the end of Tokyo Fist, Tsuda is once again hospitalized, and an eye wound spouts forth a massive amount of blood--a symbolic manifestation for tears--as he mourns. But what is it that Tsuda mourns? Is it the hectic yet unfulfilling life he led day to day before Kojima entered the mix, or is it saying goodbye to the last vestiges of his past before transforming into someone new? Just as every act of birth is painful, Tsuda can only move on from his former life by relinquishing his illusions about who he is.
Recommended for: Fans of a violent drama that takes how people sometimes lash out at their friends and loved ones to make themselves understood, and pushes it to the nth degree. Tokyo Fist isn't for the squeamish, but it has a powerful message about how we lie to ourselves and others about our inner drives, afraid to explore that dark, primal side of ourselves until it is dragged into the light.
It isn't until later into Tokyo Fist that some semblance of backstory is introduced, but it is deliberately thin, since the real meat of the story is in the way that this dysfunctional threesome attack one another, mentally and physically. Tsuda and Kojima were schoolmates, and a girl who Kojima knew was killed by some gang members under a freeway overpass, impaled on some stray rebar. After discovering her body, Kojima and Tsuda vowed to learn how to fight the attackers and get revenge before the cops could arrest the killers. Yet their plan could have been cribbed from an arcade game like "Final Fight", and is as impractical as it is reckless. Kojima pursued his path of revenge and learned how to become a boxer, while Tsuda embraced a life of complacency instead. Kojima uses violence to try to reach Tsuda, and make him into the man he claimed that he wanted to become. Both men use testosterone and machismo as a mask for their own doubts and emotional weakness. The irony of Kojima's misguided attempts to reach Tsuda through violence predate Fight Club by a few years, and both explore toxic masculinity. There are moments suggesting that this backstory will be revisited throughout Tokyo Fist--that the film will pick up the thread after this reveal. New characters--like a tougher boxing trainer named Ohizumi (Naoto Takenaka), or a rival boxer who devastates one of Kojima's colleagues--are introduced, enticing the audience to connect these new characters with Tsuda and Kojima's past. In another movie, this would be a golden opportunity to tie up that loose end of a plot, and give "resolution" to these men...give "meaning" to their struggle. But Tsukamoto resists the temptation to package the story with a neat bow, and instead commits wholly to the revelatory destruction Tsuda, Kojima, and Hizuru inflict upon one another. Their reasons no longer have anything to do with the past, but with their respective, bloody journeys of self-exploration.
Tokyo Fist uses boxing as a metaphor for facing down our inner "shadows", subsequently revealing who we are beneath the skin...and the meat and bone. Tsuda becomes embittered and even more jealous, verbally degrading Hizuru and taking up boxing himself solely out of a drive for revenge. He becomes increasingly cruel, even assaulting a fellow boxer who was sparring with him just to drive home to Kojima that he's going to give him the same treatment. Hizuru never comes across as weak, but she becomes aggressively independent after thing start to change, leading to her punching ventilation shafts as she walks through an alley, brimming with rage, and coldly manipulating both men by repeatedly visiting Kojima. Conversely, Kojima seems to become afflicted with doubts and anxiety, even considering weaseling out of a big match that could make or break his career as a boxer. The violence in Tokyo Fist is intense, and filled with moments of explosive bloodspray that transcends absurdity. When Hizuru pierces herself again and again, she unwittingly resurrects the young girl whose death set Tsuda and Kojima on their paths. That bleak overpass becomes a church for her and Tsuda, as they play out rituals that leave them with their own brand of stigmata. And when Kojima finally faces off and triumphs over the boxer everyone's afraid of, the ordeal has physically altered him to the point that the audience at the match is overcome by stunned silence. He has let the violence consume him so totally, that his wounds give him the look of an actual monster. By the end of Tokyo Fist, Tsuda is once again hospitalized, and an eye wound spouts forth a massive amount of blood--a symbolic manifestation for tears--as he mourns. But what is it that Tsuda mourns? Is it the hectic yet unfulfilling life he led day to day before Kojima entered the mix, or is it saying goodbye to the last vestiges of his past before transforming into someone new? Just as every act of birth is painful, Tsuda can only move on from his former life by relinquishing his illusions about who he is.
Recommended for: Fans of a violent drama that takes how people sometimes lash out at their friends and loved ones to make themselves understood, and pushes it to the nth degree. Tokyo Fist isn't for the squeamish, but it has a powerful message about how we lie to ourselves and others about our inner drives, afraid to explore that dark, primal side of ourselves until it is dragged into the light.