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One evening, Kojima's (Koji Tsukamoto) old classmate Tsuda (Shinya
Tsukamoto) comes to visit him and his wife Hizuru (Kaori Fujii) ... and
while Kojima's life since school has turned increasingly boring - he's an
insurance door-to-door salesman - Tsuda has become a professional boxer,
with the championship title within his reach. Since their days in school,
Kojima has come to dislike Tsuda, apparently because Tsuda wants to get
into his wife's panties, but their rivalry goes much further back: When
they were still in school, a friend of theirs was raped and killed, and
they wanted to train hard enough to one day get back at the assailants and
dish out their vengeance with bare hands ... but while Tsuda has trained
all his life since then, Kojima has grown soft and, well, become an
insurance salesman ...
Time and again, Tsuda tries to get friendly with Hizuru, but time and
again she refuses him - until Kojima accuses her of cheating on him
anyhow, upon which she really does leave him for Tsuda. Both missing
Hizuru like crazy and wanting to have his revenge on Tsuda, Kojima takes
up boxing himself, and soon becomes a loose cannon, but with masochistic
streaks. Tsuda in the meantime doesn't prove to be quite the tough guy he
pretended to be, as he is ever so often overcome by fear and depressions,
while Hizuru starts piercing and tattooing her body like wild.
Eventually, Hizuru finds herself torn between the two men, as she grows
more and more tired of Tsuda's self-pity while she starts to enjoy beating
Kojima's face to a pulp (upon his express request).
Finally, Kojima and Tsuda decide to duke it out, which is a battle only
Tsuda survives due to his experience. Later he also wins his championship
fight, but when celebrating his victory, his face breaks up and he seems
to bleed out of every pore in his body ...
In the end it seems, only Hizuru has survived the ordeal unscathed ...
A boxing movie - in itself a rather rigid genre - done the Shinya
Tsukamoto way, full of extreme images, grotesque gore and far-out, almost
psychedelic violence. It's a crazy mix of genre motives and body horror,
all layered upon a basic plot that sounds more than anyhting else like a
cheesy lovestory (guy loses girl to boxer and trains to be a boxeer
himself to prove himself worthy of her), and the result is nothing short
of fascinating - if definitely nothing for the squeamish.
Recommended.
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