Small, Slow But Steady

Nominated, Encounters Award, Berlinale 2022 Director Shô Miyake adapts a boxing memoir from Keiko Ogasawara— who turned professional despite the difficulties of lifelong deafness. “A highlight of the Encounters program at this year’s Berlinale,” (Variety), the film fictionalizes it’s subject as Keiko Ogawa, played with stern intensity by actor Yukino Kishii. The film builds from the structural trappings of the biopic, as it adopts a focused, in-the-moment approach to Keiko’s life and career: we see her struggles inside and outside of the ring. Keiko’s story is the base from which we learn about the larger struggles between the independent boxing community and the pressures of corporatization and conglomeration as COVID 19 sunk so many small community locations. The film’s sound particularly resonates: without any music, we are free listen to the small punches and rhythms that punctuate a boxer—both physically and emotionally.

Directed by Shô Miyake