First published by Sight & Sound, March 2017 “What’s the use of losing?” reads text in Toshiaki Toyoda’s documentary Unchain (2000). “There is none.” An Osakan child prodigy at Japanese chess who suddenly quit at 17, Toyoda’s early directing career celebrated Japan’s marginalised male losers. Typical is ‘Unchain’ Kaji, a likably punkish real-life boxer from…
