Movie Night: Sumo Do Sumo Don’t
A rollicking comedy with ridiculous amounts of side pube
A film is a petrified fountain of thought.
– Jean Cocteau
The March sumo tournament (basho) was conducted largely in silence. The May basho was cancelled. The July basho remains to be seen, but it looks like it will be another held with no crowd. While the March no-crowd was initially weird, in truth, much like the crowd-less UFC MMA of late, there are some benefits — the audible slaps of contact, the intensity and heaving breaths — but we lose much without the full ceremony and spirit of Sumo, and the crowd is an important part of that. It will be nice to have them back, and perhaps even to have a field trip to the Ryogoku Kokugikan.
So no, it’s not been the 2020 of sumo we were hoping for here at Fight Prose: the long-awaited transition (murdering) of the old lions in service of the youngsters come to claim the choicest hunk of wildebeest; oldster Hakuho bucking that trend and winning like three tournaments in just-barely fashion; Takakeisho remaining tearful and overrated; Enho acting like an overly dramatic goalkeeper diving for every ball. Ah well… as has been repeated ad nauseum for the last two years, “It’s a transitional time for sumo.”
We would normally be in the midst of the break between the May and July tournaments, but instead we remain in a long unknown lull from the past of a silent March to July’s uncertain future. In order to fill our quotient then, we will parcel this week’s Fight Prose with sumo content in the form of a Fight Prose Movie Night*: Sumo Do Sumo Don’t AKA Shiko Funjatta.
Fair warning: I’ve never seen this film, have no idea what it’s about, and am going based off a couple recommendations of questionable provenance. Let’s roll the videotape.
We begin in a Tokyo University classroom and the professor is reading from Jean Cocteau’s memoir of a sumo tournament. It seems the French poet and artist found great inspiration in his sumo experience, and even a little sensual thrill watching two rikishi battle; some of them do indeed have huge tits. My man Aoiyama must sport some kind of EEE cup.
We then meet our hero Shuhei, who is played by a young Masahiro Motoki who I recently watched in the Netflix show Giri/Haji, which I would heartily recommend except for the garbage ending. It was one of those “We really don’t know what the fuck to do now, so we’re just going to get unduly weird” writer moments. I’ve had them too, I understand, but with Netflix money I might have put a little more effort into it. Anyhow, Shuhei is tricked by his teacher into joining the sumo club and our adventure begins in much the same fashion it did in Summer School, Revenge of the Nerds, or dozens of other 80s comedies about scrappy underdogs coming together to overcome a superior force and find their true passion and self-worth in the process.
We meet the hot manager, the goofy original club member, the chubby friendless nerd, the effeminate idol, and the obnoxious know-it-all gaijin (foreigner). This last one piqued me a bit as he might have hit a little close to home. That is until they had him reading Ayn Rand on the train and I was like, okay, you got me, full marks, all was forgiven, and I enjoyed the stereotype the rest of the way. Naturally they encounter all the other stock characters you can imagine: the tough guy jocks who think they are disgracing the sanctity of sumo, the obnoxious distrustful elders, etc etc etc. I won’t spoil how it turns out, but let me just say, you’ll never believe what happens at the big tournament!
I kid. Despite its many derivative qualities, I was quite entertained by this movie and think even a non-sumo fan with at least a passing interest in Japan and a tolerance for subtitles could probably find worse ways to spend an hour and a half. For a sumo fan, it’s pretty much a two-thumbs-up guarantee. Content Warning: There is a fairly gratuitous amount of flabby yet hirsute male inner thigh to contend with. With that: hakkeyoi! Hope to be back at the July basho with some more juicy sumo content.
*The inaugural Fight Prose Movie Nights was the Mirko Cro-Cop classic Ultimate Force. More wait in the wings, including a JCVD marathon.
