Fridae

Imagine Rocky retold in a boxing club in high school, and you’ll pretty much have nailed the latest film from Toshio Lee, an up and coming director makes films in all sorts of genres as long as they are also comedies. We know how Rocky worked as a rags to riches/underdog tale when set in the Bronx, but how about when it’s told as a youth drama about two best friends discovering their true potential through the rigours of sports?

Toshio Lee does make conscious references to Rocky in the montages of their daily training regimens and ten mile jogs along the cityscape, their steady climb through the ranks of boxing tournaments, and their destined rival, a teenaged Japanese clone of Ivan Drago.

But since this is a high school Rocky, interspersed with the thrilling sports segment is a story that takes place within the space of one school year. That’s right – while our protagonists journey from zero to become genius athletes in the ring, they also tackle more mundane stuff like boy-girl relationships or the nitty-gritty logistics of organising a CCA in school. We’re saved from seeing them juggle their academic work too, but somehow Toshio Lee does inject his comic instinct to make these segments feel light instead of being roadblocks to the actual story.

Compared to the director’s previous offerings, Box! is a far less comic piece and more of an action film. The film’s best moments are always its sports sequences, which are shot in split screen whenever possible. In addition, its training montages might actually inspire audiences to work out after the film – there’s a difference between watching Rocky Balboa do his superman regimen and a bunch of teens go the whole hog, and even inventing interesting workout routines in an onsen!