We begin in a Tokyo University classroom and the professor is reading from Jean Cocteau's memoir of a sumo tournament. 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. 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). 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.
