Sunday, November 12, 2017 at 7:00PM

     Harvard Film Archive, 24 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138

The Boxer (Bokusa)
Terayama’s most traditional film, The Boxer reveals his passion for pugilism as a pure form of theater, improvisatory and unabashedly violent. The Boxer tells the story of a scrappy adolescent who spends his last monies to travel to the city and enroll in boxing school. Forging a difficult bond with his eccentric and at first reluctant coach, the young boxer suffers the tumults and pains of life in the ring before being thrust onto the largest stage of them all. Terayama brings a documentary verve to the film, casting celebrated Japanese boxers in bold cameos. 

Directed by Shuji Terayama. With Bunta Sugawara, Kentaro Shimizu, Masumi Harukawa
Japan 1977, 35mm, color, 94 min. Japanese with English subtitles

Curated by Go Hirasawa and Julian Ross with Haden Guest.

Film descriptions by Haden Guest and Becca Voelcker.

Presented in partnership with Anthology Film Archives; National Film Center, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, and the George Eastman Museum, with the generous support of the Kinoshita Group. Special thanks: Theodore C. Bestor and Stacie Matsumoto—Reischauer Institute, Harvard; Hisashi Okajima, Akira Tochigi and Chizuru Usui—National Film Center, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; the Japan Foundation; Jed Rapfogel—Anthology Film Archives; Julian Ross; Go Hirasawa.


Tickets go on sale 45 minutes prior to show time. The HFA does not do advance ticket sales.