Throw Down

Sze-to, once a judo champion, now runs a bar, drinks, and is deep in debt. A young fighter who wants to beat him comes looking for him, and a woman who wants to be a singer keeps circling the same bar. The three of them drag each other back into life without meaning to. The film is not interested in fighting. It is interested in the willingness to lose: the principle of judo is knowing how to fall, and the film uses that directly as a rule for living. The form wanders between genres: comedy, musical passages, scenes that slide without warning into the surreal, and hard fights. It is far from Johnnie To's familiar crime template and much freer. The film is an act of homage. To dedicated it to Akira Kurosawa and drew on Kurosawa's first feature, Sanshiro Sugata, so one of the most prolific directors in Hong Kong turns, mid-career, to the beginning of Japanese cinema. To considers it one of his most personal works. Louis Koo, Aaron Kwok and Cherrie Ying star. Who it is for: viewers who want to step outside To's better-known films and who are drawn to the philosophy of martial arts. Who it is not for: anyone who wants a consistent genre. The film changes tone constantly and some scenes never connect to the story.