{"id":846140,"date":"2026-08-04T20:22:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T20:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/846140\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T20:22:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T20:22:17","slug":"blu-ray-review-the-boxer-limited-edition-inside-pulse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/846140\/","title":{"rendered":"Blu-ray Review: The Boxer (Limited Edition) \u2013 Inside Pulse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Normally when I\u2019m reviewing an Asian film with \u201cBoxer\u201d in the title, I have to explain that this refers to a martial arts fighter and not a guy wearing boxing gloves and trunks fighting in a ring. While The Boxer was made in Japan and released in 1977, it\u2019s really about the sport of boxing. This is an interesting film in that it came out before Raging Bull, but has a few cinematic elements that Martin Scorcese also used in his classic starring Robert De Niro. The Boxer opens up in black and white like Raging Bull, but swaps over to color. The plot isn\u2019t close to Raging Bull or even Rocky which was flying high around this time. The Boxer is its own movie. <\/p>\n

Hayato (New Battles Without Honor and Humanity\u2018s Bunta Sugawara) was a promising boxer who notoriously quit in the middle of a fight. Why did he throw in the towel when he wasn\u2019t flat on the mat? We don\u2019t quite know. But after all this time, he\u2019s still a bit meandering after giving up the fight game. Everything in his life at the top is gone including his wife. He\u2019s just drifting. His life gets a complete shock with his younger brother dies in a work accident. Hayato wants to get revenge for his brother. In a bit of a twist, he decides to train Tenma (The Boss\u2019s Boss\u2018 Kentar\u00f4 Shimizu), the man who caused the accident to be a boxer. The real problem is Tenma has an issue with his foot. Hayato believes he can get around this injury. Like all boxing movies there is a training montage although with a few odd routines. Hayato repeatedly hits Tenma in the stomach with a tire swing. Guess that gets you ready for a good pounding in the ring. Can Tenma really win the big tournament? Can Hayato hold it together to give him the right advice during the bouts. <\/p>\n

This is not like any of the other boxing movies that came out during this era. In a sense, we\u2019re seeing Rocky if it was all from the point of view of Mickey. And if Rocky had just killed Mickey\u2019s brother while breaking his kneecaps while collecting for the loan shark. This is not a conventional fight flick. Part of that is because director Sh\u00fbji Terayama wasn\u2019t the usual genre director. He previous films included Emperor Tomato Ketchup, Pastoral: To Die In The Country and Throw Away Your Books, Rally In The Streets. Terayama allows Sugawara to get into the character and not just have him focused on the upcoming fights. The Boxer adds so much to the fight films of this era without being formulaic.<\/p>\n

\"Image\"<\/p>\n

The Video is 1.78:1 anamorphic. The 1080p transfer brings out the gritty life in the gyms and Hayato\u2019s apartment. This is not a glamourous sporting career. The Audio is LPCM 1.0 Mono in Japanese. You\u2019ll hear the body blows in the ring. The film is subtitled in English. <\/p>\n

J.A. Seazer (18:29) has the composer talk about his long time collaborating with director Shuji Teayama. They met through an actress at the after party for a play. Shuji originally wanted him to act in one of his productions. In a strange twist, he got into music even though he hadn\u2019t played before. He was able to create original scores for their productions. <\/p>\n

The Year Toei Failed (12:21) has Tom Mes get into what went wrong for the studio in 1977. The studio had failures at the box office. Their Yakuza and grotesque films had played out by this time in the decade. What did the studio do to bring back audiences?<\/p>\n

The Booklet has images from the film and an essay by Maria Roberta Novielli about the film.<\/p>\n

Radiance Films present The Boxer: Limited Edition. Directed by Sh\u00fbji Terayama. Screenplay by Shir\u00f4 Ishimori, Rio Kishida and Sh\u00fbji Terayama. Starring Bunta Sugawara, Kentar\u00f4 Shimizu, Masumi Harukawa, K\u00f4ji Hio, Hiroko Isayama, Yuka Kamebuchi & J\u016br\u014d Kara. Running Time: 95 minutes. Rating: Unrated. Release Date: July 21, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Normally when I\u2019m reviewing an Asian film with \u201cBoxer\u201d in the title, I have to explain that this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":846141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,294557,49,48,294558,294559,82,294560,99197],"class_list":["post-846140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-bunta-sugawara","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-radiance-films","tag-shuji-terayama","tag-sports","tag-the-boxer","tag-toei"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}