The first time I watched this film was in 2004 when i got the beautiful Hong Kong Panorama DVD release (se pics below) and then Johnnie To was
the big hope for the Hong Kong Film industry that was in decline. To made more and more interesting and personal films and was looked upon as
the innovator of the HK film. He had evolved from his Golden Era filmmaking by combining his action style á la John Woo with an artier approach
á la Wong Kar Wai and this resulted in some amazing films from the first decade of the millennia, as PTU, Running on Karma, Exiled and This one.
Throw Down is a delightfully quirky action-drama, artmovie with an existential touch ... and everyone knows Judo, and I just Love it.

Pics below shows the beautiful old Hong Kong release on DVD. The film is also Johnnie To's homage to Akira Kurosawa.

Brother Bo or Sze-To (Louis Koo) is an ex-master of Judo but now a drunken slob and gambler with debts and who runs a nightclub owned by
the triads. A sleazy woman, Mona (Cherry In) without an apartment is singing at his nightclub, and the saxophone player Tony (Aaron Kwok)
also challenges Bo for a judo fight, who by the way can play the guitar. This odd trio robs the gangster boss Brother Savage (Cheung Si-Fai)
at an arcade game place, and he also is a Judo fighter. This leads up to one of the greatest and maybe the most experimental scenes of Johnnie
To's career - The Nightclub scene (almost Cassavetes style) where where The Big Boss wants to know what has happened and about Brother
Bo's dept, and everyone talks simultaneously about different subjects.

There are the boss, brother Savage, Bo, Tony, Mona and her ex-pimp (Jordan Chan), the couple running a Dojo - Master Cheng Yat Sun and
his mentally retarded son Jing (played magnificently by non-actor Calvin Choi) who lives in his Akira Kurosawa dreamworld and quietly starts
singing during the enfolding chaos. Up turns also Lee Kong (Tony Leung Ka-Fai) another Dojo owner and he also challenges Bo Sze-To in
Judo and to finish a match from two years earlier that wasn't finished. The nightclub scene ends in a huge fight where everyone fights everyone
and only Judo is used. Just .... wonderful, funny and maybe even poetic and with Jing's fascinating singing this could be To's greatest scene
ever. Also the scene with Sze-To and Mona fleeing from a gambling house out on the street and in a rain of stolen money bills was impressive.

Throw Down - My Favourite Johnnie To movie. To dedicated the film to Akira Kurosawa

Lee Kong beats Tony and Bo Sze-To's old Master, Chen Yat Sung (Lo Hoi Pang) is badly hurt after a Throw Down and dies. Will Sze-To start
training again and meet Lee Kong for an end to their never finished match, and is there a reason why he stopped training Judo ?

Criterion presents the film in widescreen 2.35:1 and with a cantonese audio DTS-HD MA 5.1 and with english subtitles, region A bluray edition.
Extras: Filling in Blanks - 2021 interview with screenwriter Yau Nai Hoi (11 minutes), Finding the Pulse - 2021 interview with composer Peter
Kam (11 minutes), Hidden in Plain Sight - 2021 interview with film scholar David Bordwell (21 minutes), Kicking Conventions - 2021 interview
with film scholar Caroline Guo (12 minutes), Making of Throw Down featurette (11 minutes), Johnnie To 2004 interview (40 minutes), Trailer
and an essay by Film Critic Sean Gilman written on a poster insert

................................................

The old HK DVD edition was presented in anamorphic widescreen and with a DTS-ES 5.1 audio, had the same interview with Johnnie To with
english subtitles where he spoke about the film and about his thoughts on filmmaking in general, probably the same Making Of featurette, a
trailer, TV spots, a picture gallery and an insert sheet