<%attr> film_title => 'Tokyo Fist', year => 1995 director => 'Shinya Tsukamoto' cast => [ 'Kahori Fujii', 'Shinya Tsukamoto', 'Kohji Tsukamoto', 'Naomasa Musaka', 'Naoto Takenaka', 'Koichi Wajima', 'Tomoro Taguchi', 'Nobu Kanaoka' ]

Tokyo Fist comes from the director of Testuo: The Iron Man (a powerful, disturbing film about a man who is slowly being transformed into a machine, against his will). Like Tetsuo, Tokyo Fist is a film about transformation, though in Tokyo Fist the transformations are mostly self-inflicted.

The basic plot revolves around three characters: Tsuda (Shinya Tsukamoto), a salaryman (an insurance salesman, I believe), Hizuru (Kahori Fujii), Tsuda's salarywoman fiancee, and Kojima (Kohji Tsukamoto), a brutal boxer.

Tsuda encounters Kojima by chance when he goes to deliver something at a boxing arena. It turns out that Kojima and Tsuda were schoolmates in high school and they have some sort of mysterious past. Kojima invites himself over to the apartment Tsuda and Hizuru share and soon makes a pass at Hizuru.

Hizuru finds herself drawn to Kojima, though she appears to be repelled at first. This sounds like standard love triangle stuff but this movie is far from it. What is really interesting about the plot is the way it explores the characters. As Hizuru finds herself more drawn to Kojima, she also finds that she is developing fascination for pain, both self-inflicted (tattoos and body piercing) and inflicted on others. Kojima is obsessed with getting revenge on Tsuda for some past failure on Tsuda's part, while Tsuda starts training as a boxer in order to get revenge on Kojima for his recent transgressions against him.

More importantly than the plot, the visual style is unbelievable. Basically, this film starts at high speed and accelerates. Visually, it was constantly fascinating, a combination of both anime and comic books in style. For those of you have seen Tetsuo you will understand what I am talking about. If you haven't seen it then you are in for a great discovery (either by watching Tetsuo or Tokyo Fist).

I have always enjoyed films that explored people who are basically twisted in the head, and this film provides three of them. The visuals work hand-in-hand with this storyline to illustrate the descent all three of them make. The music, a pounding techno soundtrack (which appeared to use boxing related sounds for percussion) was also perfectly suited to this movie.

Tokyo Fist gets to the heart of boxing, brutal rage and the desire to destroy another human being. This is one of the most exciting films I've seen in quite a while.

It was released by Manga Video so some stores may have it in their anime sections, though it is a live action film.