Tokyo Fist – Tsukamoto Shinya – japan, 1995.
One japanese movie which left a strong print in my head. While watching it, I’ve been often chocked by the violence of the images, but it deserves a message.
The ambition of Tsukamoto is to present an extremist alternative to the current japanese society. By taking Tokyo as a symbol of this power that crushes men and souls, making them ravel like zombies between gigantic, secular buildings, He’s attacking, his own way, this violent liberal society by proposing a counter-current ever more violent, but definitively more human: the pain. Thanks to pain, one takes again conscience of his body, body which has tendency to become not more than a support for the brain without another interest than to be used to move it from one place to another. But it goes further in its expose: not only one takes again conscience of his body by the pain (brought here by boxing), but also of his soul which was no longer reflecting the deep identity of the individual. (via Cinemasie.com, part translated in english).
The movie is not entertainement, and is a highly personal view on the interaction of human beings and the city of Tokyo. I like this in a movie where the director is not compromizing to express what he wants.