Fantasia Fest 2025: Blazing Fists Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

Fantasia favorite, director Takashi Miike, returns to the festival with two exciting titles, including Blazing Fists (or Blue Fight: The Breaking Down of Young Blue Warriors). The film follows the newfound friendship of Ryoma (Yoshizawa) and Ikuto (Kinoshita) in a juvenile detention center. When a famous fighter visits to give the boys a motivational speech, it inspires them to reintegrate into the real world and train to become fighters competing in the Breaking Down tournament. Caught between their training for fighting stardom and entanglements in contending with dangerous gangs, Miike attempts an engaging coming-of-age story that tries to balance these two sparring conflicts in a subdued version of his intense style.

That being said, the primary flaw of Blazing Fists is the frail focus between the boys’ training for fighting stardom and their rivalry with a local gang. While their motivation for fighting is evident, the film meanders around this vital plot point once they are released from juvenile hall. The story bounces between wanting to settle scores, one by one, and the hasty stakes behind their Breaking Down audition that never finds resolution in an unsatisfying cliffhanger. Consequently, it is difficult to understand the desired outcome of their wavering motivation.

Miike has consistently shown through his extensive filmography of 100+ productions that the ability to adapt his style to diverse genres and production scales is ever present, which Fantasia applauded by presenting him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016. His restrained use of this dynamic style in Blazing Fists results in an underutilized opportunity to showcase the brutality of martial arts among the endless battles Ryoma and Ikuto face. While competently choreographed, the film frustratingly leaves these ferocious blows out of frame, constantly leaving audiences to imagine the stakes behind the emotional face-offs that are merely carried by percussive sound design.

Overall, Blazing Fists is a hollow frame of Miike’s distinct style, as the underwhelming martial arts fighting and unfocused narrative make it a disappointing addition to his extensive filmography. However, Miike has earned enough respect for audiences to give all his films a try regardless of their flaws that everyone should take a gander for themselves to decide. If not, there’s always his other entry appearing at this year’s festival, Sham.

still courtesy of Fantasia Festival

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Costa Christoulas

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