Boxing films share a similar arc, typically climaxing in a big bout that decides everything ¡ª at least everything relevant to the hero¡¯s fate. This does not always means triumph, as fans of the ¡°Rocky¡± series know, but even in defeat the hero usually inspires respect and sympathy, at the very least for surviving a contest of a brutality that non-boxers can only imagine.
The challenge for a director is to film that big bout ¡ª and the ones leading up to it ¡ª not just as a record of a sporting contest, but as part of a story. Some rise to the challenge with blood-splattered realism, such as Martin Scorsese with his 1980 classic ¡°Raging Bull,¡± while others evade it with cartoony excess, such as Fumihiko Sori with the 2011 film ¡°Ashita no Joe (Tomorrow¡¯s Joe).¡±
Masaharu Take takes the former approach in ¡°Hyakuen no Koi (100 Yen Love),¡± a film that won the Best Picture Award in the Japanese Cinema Splash section at the 2014 Tokyo International Film Festival. But unlike the many boxing films that are testosterone-driven dramas ¡ª including Scorsese¡¯s ¡ª Take centers his on a woman and begins it as a black comedy.
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