Unchain

Toyoda's excellent documentary plays like a rock'n'soul lament for the limits of a testosterone-driven life. Toshiro Kaji nicknamed himself 'Unchain' after the Ray Charles song 'Unchain My Heart'. He became a pro boxer in 1988 and had just seven bouts (lost six, drew one) before nerve paralysis in his eyes forced him to stop. He went on to drive trucks, work as a radio DJ and help disabled kids, but a bizarre raid on an Osaka job centre landed him a spell in a mental hospital. He's fiercely devoted to Sachiko, but while he was in hospital after a road accident she married his Korean-Japanese friend Nagaishi. Toyoda is obviously close to Kaji and his circle of equally unsuccessful friends; the film is a group portrait without condescension, sentimentality or prurience. These people may, objectively, be losers, but this glimpse of lives on the bottom rung is remarkably heartening.