だからなに 「Dakara nani」
Release Date: 2025
Duration: 29 mins.
Director: Chihiro Yuki, Hikaru Yabuki
Writer: Chihiro Yuki, Hikaru Yabuki (Screenplay),
Starring: Chihiro Yuki, Hikaru Yabuki
Crumpled is a tersely-shot two-hander short written, directed, and starring Chihiro Yuki and Hikaru Yabuki whose physical performances convey the journey through emotional anguish their characters wade through.
We follow Aiko who is new to a boxing gym. The reckless way she trains speaks of an overwhelming anger. Having been sexually assaulted, boxing is the only way to tame her emotions. This puts her in contact with Ko, a laconic boxer with a blonde dye job who also contends with an inner fury. As these two young adults pass by each other, they begin to open up to one another. However, an incident at their gym reminds Aiko of her past and sends her running. In the aftermath, exhausted and by a river, she has to find her way again to some form of calm. This time, she is not alone.
Moments of “oof, this is awkward dialogue” at the climax when Aiko unburdens her soul aside, this 30-minute short is efficient filmmaking in how it deploys narration and succinctly edited scenes to cut into dramatic and descriptive beats with the minimum of fuss. Everything feels perfectly timed and so it zooms by. The filmmakers trust the audience that they use allow for the character development to happen via muscular physical performances rather than torturous or contrived expositional dialogue.
While boxing is what brings Aiko and Ko together, this story takes place mostly outside of a Tokyo boxing ring but it does use the idea of sport as a way of taming trauma very successfully as they run, dash, push, pull, and bash each other and themselves to expend energy. You really get the sense that they are releasing the negativity that holds them back with their movements and the emotional rock that Ko becomes for Aiko is represented by him allowing her to wrestle him.
If the content itself is nothing new, it never belabours the details or overplays sequences as Chihiro Yuki and Hikaru Yabuki tell the exact story they want very cinematically through elliptical editing and gutsy performances.
Crumpled played at Osaka Asian Film Festival’s Short Program B section on March 15 and March 16.