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When I saw Throwdown at the video store, I didn't think it would be that great. However, I had never seen a judo movie before, so I decided to give it a try.

First of all, the action scenes in the movie are great. I think people who are knowledgeable about ground fighting (eg Brazilian jiujitsu or judo) will appreciate the fight scenes. The fight scenes display both take-downs (throws and trips) when the fighters are standing up and ground fighting (joint locks and chokes) when the fights go to the ground. The transitions between the judo moves also flow very well. The actors in the movie even demonstrate proper techniques to break their falls when they get thrown to the ground.

In addition to the fight scenes, I love how the characters all have obstacles in their lives that they must overcome. I love how judo is used as a metaphor for the lives of these characters. When practicing judo, a person will fall many times and find it hard to continue. To be successful, the person must get up after falling down and continue to train. Similarly, a person will experience hardships in life and often find it difficult to continue living. Despite these hardships, one must put in his best effort and continue doing what he has to do.

If you're expecting this movie to have actors flying in the air like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, you might be disappointed. But if you want to see a movie with more realistic fight scenes and an inspirational message about perseverance, I recommend this movie.

I just watched the version that's dubbed in Mandarin, and found the film to be a disappointment after hearing so much high praise about it. So I would advise everyone to try the original HK version or better subbed version instead. Hopefully you would have a better experience.

I enjoyed the last two films I saw by the same director (PTU and Breaking News, both subbed), but I found this particular one to be incoherent and the characters hard to relate to. The film hardly makes me sympathize with its main characters, and without that connection, their life and action holds no interest to me, and all the cinematic sequences director employs become only distracting gimmicks (ie the dialog/bathroom scene involve 3 leading characters in the night club, the chasing sequence with female lead, money, a shoe...) The performance by all the actors are great, but the story presents those characters in a way that I don't see enough explanation to how they got to the situation they are in and why they chose to take certain action over other. The pace of the film is all wrong for me, some of the cuts seems to be placed at all the wrong places, On the plus side, the film is beautifully shot. Hopefully all the problem I have with this film is due to bad dubbing, which is entirely possible. But I have no intention to find out after already wasting over an hour of my time.

For some reason this year, Johnnie To has hired actor that rarely or even be seen in his dark artistic movie. Just like Breaking News, this movie start Louis Koo (who work with him in Love FOr All Season, great movie BTW), Aaron Kwok, Cherrie Ying and Tony Leung Ka Fai.

In this movie he prove he can make a bad actor act good in this, has for the case of Aaron Kwok. Louis Koo unlike most of his film, rarely smile, has he portray a dark character he done a decent job. The movie contain the same moody feeling of late his other night hong kong like The Mission, PTU etc. The film revovle around the character, like those film and the judo was a prop. The judo fighting was film pretty impressive and enjoyable. Cherrie Ying for some reason, does not look hot in this movie, but her appearance scene (where she eating noodles and the owner keep throwing her stuff out the house) was special. I believe Louis Koo doesn't want to fight because he lost his passion. Nothing satisfy him anymore, not even money or booze.

I have to say this movie was better acted and the ending is better than breaking News.

Director/writer Johnnie To throws down lots of HK movie clichés: The Heist, The Young Challenger, The Fighting, The Master, The Rival, The Gangsters, The Gambling. But all of it's entertaining nonsense used to set up his usual innovative scenes and a little drama.

Give Director To credit for parodying these clichés to a fault.

This movie is challenging. This is not easy to digest chop sockey flash bang action.

So what is this movie about? A lot: Rediscovering relations from happier times, rediscovering oneself, and a director having fun and dropping references to Kurosawa's "Sugata Sanshiro" (1943).

First impression... directorial tour de force, if (dont kill me for saying this) light on character development. I suspect Johnnie To did a minor miracle getting what was (or may have been) fairly thin stuff on the page via other writers to be far more (dare I say) poetic and lyrical (and even innocent) vibe than it would be in the hands of a Journeyman. This flows much more like a something Id actually expect to see in, I dont know, an animayed feature than live action, like from the fluidity of the tracking shots and movements of the camera as well as the slow motion.

It's the work of a dedicated Smuggler, bringing something deeper about how some of us out there - like the Gambling addict nightclub owner, more clear-eyed and pragmatic (would be) Nightclub singer, and ex Judo champion who may or may not find redemption as the plot summary says - are in an exiential rainstorm and its hard to run fast enough to find shelter or what to do. If I even tried to break down "story beats" it would sound silly, and rightfully so. Its an expressionistic experiment first, kick-ass action-crime thriller second.

Maybe a little too much sappy synth music for my taste to lift up the mood, maybe one or two flourishes that I didn't love (the guy singing mournfully during the nightclub fight, hmm gotta sleep on that). But this is often sumptuously directed, which is not what I was expecting, albeit I think my exposure to To has been the Election films and not a lot else (shame I can hear you crying), and I'd love to analyze the lighting and shots with a class or a film club or something. If it ever plays Alamo or the like, count me in.

And when I say To did a lot with the direction here, I also can tell he worked with the actors - Kwan and Ying but Ko especially in the kind of expressive/tortured masculine role Mickey Rourke could've crushed 20 years prior- and I felt depth from them in the style. If nothing else, it makes Judo fighting seem the most like a calling I've seen in any other film I can think of (even more than the directly cited Sanshiro Sugata by AK).

Raise my rating or lower it by tomorrow? Place your bets.