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Sumo do, sumo don't

  Country : Japan
Year: 1992
Genre: Comedy
Format: DVD
Running Time: 1H45
Distributor: City Laser
Date reviewed: 10/29/2000
   
Producer: Suo Masayuki
Director: Suo Masayuki

Cast:
Akira Emoto, Robert Hoffman, Masahiro Motoki, Kentarô Sakai, Misa Shimizu, Naoto Takenaka

 


Story: A university in Japan is having trouble with is Sumo Wrestling club. It seems no one is interested in Sumo Wrestling, one of the member of the faculty was the Sumo champion in his youth. He managed to convince some people to join the Sumo team just for one day to attend a tournament. After a horrible and shameful defeat the members of the team decide to stay and to train for the next competition.

Review: This is a comical yet informative movie on the art of Sumo Wrestling. The movie looks at the traditional art of Sumo in the modern and evolving Japanese culture. The story is set at a Japanese university where no one has an interest in Sumo Wrestling. The story is pretty basic and easy to understand, and don't worry you don't need to know Sumo before hand.

The characters are very important to the story, they are a ragtag team who all got involved for any reason but not for the love of Sumo. The story is focused on these five wrestlers who try but they are just not good. You can see the development of these characters who really don't want to be sumo wrestlers but eventually develop a love for the sport. Also the way they make their development, many humorous situation arise to keep everyone entertained. The characters and their spirit show what Sumo is all about and this creates the spirit of the movie. You'll end up cheering for the characters before the movie is over.

The entertainment factor in this movie is based on the story along with a little humor. As the story develops you'll be hooked to the screen, not to mention the actual sumo fights which are very informative. Sumo wrestling is an ancient art with many rituals and practices and this movie portrays that very well in an entertaining manner.

The subtitles are great for the DVD version and the text does not scroll too fast. This movie was a lot better than we expected, we were not sure what a sumo movie would be like as we have never seen anything like it. The movie turned out to be a very pleasant surprise, the story was enjoyable and the characters great. This is simply said a very charming movie that many people would surely enjoy.

DVD [ NTSC, All Region ] :


The picture quality was good but a little blurry, the subtitles were both in Chinese and English and you were not able to turn them off (but not burnt on print). The sound was a 2.0 Stereo, the DVD has no menus or extras and the movie starts right away.

Reviewed by Peter Zsurka


Story Cast Entertainment Subtitles Overall
3.5 4 4.5 4.5 4


 

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