THE BOXER

This gritty sports drama from the Age of Rocky is avant-garde auteur Shuji Terayama’s most accessible work, blending the raw intensity of boxing with Terayama’s signature poetic and visual flair. A former boxing champ on the skids (Bunta Sugawara, JAPANESE GODFATHER) finds an opportunity for redemption by training a young fighter everyone judges beyond hope (Kentaro Shimizu, MERMAID LEGEND). Terayama imbues the film with documentary-style fights, striking cinematography and an interest in boxing as metaphor for human struggle.