Throw Down (2004)

Rick Meyers (0:37)

Hi, everybody, this is Rick Meyers, the colonist for Inside Kung Fu and Asian Cult Cinema, also author of great martial arts movies from Bruce Lee to Jackie Chan and more.

And here we are on the audio commentary track for the wonderful movie Throw Down. And with me today, happily, almost as always, is the master of remaster from Taisheng Video, Frank Djeng.

Frank Djeng (0:58)

Hi, how are you guys doing?

Rick Meyers (1:00)

And Frank, you, for this American re-release of this film, I believe you have gone back and re-translated it and put in new subtitles.

Frank Djeng (1:11)

Yes, correct. And for those of you who have actually seen this film before, you'll be very happy to know that the song being sung in the film, I actually translated the subtitles.

Rick Meyers (1:22)

Hallelujah. You know, if you've listened to any of our other commentaries before, you know, one of my big problems with translations is they don't translate the songs, they don't translate the credits, they don't translate the signs that are up on the screen.

Frank Djeng (1:36)

Right. Johnny Toe has mentioned that this film is his homage to Akira Kurosawa, and there are a lot of references to Kurosawa in this film, and right away you see the Kurosawa homage right here in the opening credits. The listing, the way the credits are listing reminded you of what? Seven Samurai, Stray Dog, you name it. I mean, it's basically right there, you see the Kurosawa nod.

Rick Meyers (2:01)

Right. It's very interesting also in that Kurosawa did the Judo saga, and I've always found it interesting with this movie and with others like from Korea, you would think Koreans would do a movie about Taekwondo if you were going to do a martial art movie because Taekwondo is a Korean martial art. Here we have a Chinese movie about a Japanese martial art, Judo.

Frank Djeng (2:22)

Right. And the song that the character is singing here is actually the theme song to a Japanese TV series that's based on the Kurosawa movie, Sanchiro Tsukada. The TV series is also called Sanchiro Tsukada, but the guy singing basically the theme song from the TV series.

Rick Meyers (2:40)

And that's again something you wouldn't know unless you listen to the audio commentary. And what's great about that also is there's other things about the movie you might not know, but will hopefully fill you in on as time goes on. Right.

Frank Djeng (2:50)

And here again, for those of you who are familiar with Kurosawa film, this again reminds me of the beginning of Throne of Blood, where you open the film with a song, right? And the song is kind of like a cap, it caps the beginning and the end. And here you see them passing out flyers, soliciting people to go to their judo school. And the significance of this will come later.

Rick Meyers (3:16)

And it's also, even if you don't get the significance later, the fascination of always, they're doing something honorable, they're trying to do something for people, and people are just throwing them away. And in the martial art world, whether you're in China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan, or anywhere else, the youth is rejecting, for the most part, every single place that I go, I hear the same thing from the veteran martial artists, that the young people are rejecting the culture.

Frank Djeng (3:42)

Right. Here you see an empty board that's signifying that this judo dojo is closing down.

And of course, again, the significance will come later.

Rick Meyers (3:55)

And also immediately. It's interesting, because while there's a lot of echoes of Kurosawa's work, there are also a lot of echoes of Johnny Tso's work.

Frank Djeng (4:02)

Right.

Rick Meyers (4:03)

And this film, he also feels, is the culmination of this part of his journey as a director. He's been directing since the mid-80s.

Actually, he started in 1980 with the NMAG case, and he's produced a massive amount of work as both director and producer. And one of the most fascinating things about him is his versatility. He is all over the map. I mean, there are other Hong Kong directors who are versatile, but not to the degree, I feel, that Johnny Tso is in terms of the quality of each of the kinds of films that he attempts.

Frank Djeng (4:43)

This is Aaron Kwok, famous Hong Kong pop singer here, playing the Tony character.

And right away, you notice that all the actors are doing their own judo stunts, is because that's what Johnny Tso demanded. He wanted everybody in this film to learn how to actually to learn judo, so that there's no body double, there's no stuntmen performing the actual judo work.