Ossan
No Kefei (Dynamite Wolf): Written by Natsu Hashimoto,
directed by Kohei Taniguchi. Starring: Yota Kawase, Yusuke Matsuda,
Haruto Kobayashi, Susumu Noda, Shiruya Jinbo.
Running Time: 71
minutes.
Rating:
3/4
Dynamite Wolf follows the time-honored
formula for a coming-of-age story revolving around a sport; establish the
lonely, oddball nature of the main character and his small coterie of friends,
have them discover through happenstance an entire sports universe previously
unknown to them, arrange them to meet an older mentor-figure who himself is
struggling for professional redemption, and watch their friendship bloom
despite being deeply misunderstood by society.
Throw in a classmate bully who could (maybe) have a change of heart by
the end, frustrated background parents, and a subplot involving authority
figures at the school, and you have all the elements you need for a
heartwarming tale of a boy finding his own little niche in the world.
Hiroto
and his friends are all struggling over a simple questionnaire from the school
asking all students to name their talent and to demonstrate it to the
class. Bereft of an answer, they spent
their free time skipping stones into the river, until they notice a strange man
on the other side who always spends his afternoons wrestling with a blow-up
doll. Intrigued, Hiroto follows hum and
soon discovers a local underground wrestling scene, where the leading champion
is one Dynamite Wolf, a mysterious figure whose real identity is unknown. Hiroto becomes convinced that this lonely man
by the river is THE Dynamite Wolf, and persuades him to teach him and his
friends the art of professional wrestling, deciding that, at last, he’s found
his talent.
There
are a few twists the story takes from there, but while they are fairly
predictable I won’t disrespect the film by spoiling them here. This is a movie that follows its formula to a
T, but does it so well that it really doesn’t matter in the end; this is a
well-made, well-acted, fun, funny little film that hits all the notes it needs
to, and doesn’t break itself trying to do more.
Hiroto and his pals have great chemistry together, and I was grateful
the story never tried to toss an extra loop into the ring where they turn on
each other over some silly misunderstanding; they know they can count on each
other, even when they get on each other’s nerves.
Like
with any solid movie, this film takes a world alien to my own experience (in
this case, professional masked wrestling) and allows me to catch a glimpse of
how someone can get so into it. The
filmmakers sought to shoot everything from the perspective of a child, and the
best moments of the film succeed wildly in this regard, especially the first
time Hiroto ever walks into a ring and sees a professional match for the first
time. It doesn’t reach spectacular
visual storytelling heights, but it doesn’t need to. It’s a small film that knows what it wants to
do, goes out, and does it. And that’s
more than enough.
-Noah Franc
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