Jemný rváč

Director Adolf Zika, a former top judoka with personal experience of the Japanese school of judo, has followed the career of Lukáš Krpálek for more than fifteen years. He made the first film about his phenomenal career in 2016, when Lukáš Krpálek concluded his collection of all world titles in the weight category up to 100 kg with an Olympic gold medal. It seemed that he could not achieve more, his journey as a fighter could not have been more successful. But judo still has a royal category, a class of giants over 100 kg, whose weight and strength completely overshadow ordinary individuals. And it is here that the film The Gentle Fighter begins to tell a sports story so improbable that no one has even uttered it in the long seventy years of judo's competitive history, let alone carried it out. In a relatively insignificant judo country, someone was born in 1990 who was able to turn Japanese national pride upside down, who, with his humility and respect, was able to uniquely change the thinking of Japanese judo masters. The completely exceptional sporting triumph of Lukáš Krpálek is told against the backdrop of the thirteen-year-old unknown story of former world champion and world number one Takamasa Anai. He was the first to experience firsthand what became a nightmare for Japanese judokas for many years. At the London Olympics, he reached the edge of a cliff of despair and hopelessness during a single match with Lukáš Krpálek. The next act of respect and humility, which Takamasa Anai decided to perform in front of the Japanese judo elite after several years, took place at the Tokyo Olympics immediately after Lukáš's Olympic triumph in the heaviest royal category. That day, a new history of this sport began to be written. The film features a number of great figures in Japanese judo, and the statements of director and Olympian Petr Jákl and actor and former top judoka Ondřej Vetchý also have a significant contribution. The mother's honesty about Lukáš's childhood can positively influence the fate of many a problematic child and his parents. The participation of the star of the Paris Olympics, Tedd Riner, who lit the Olympic flame, ultimately gives the film a certain worldliness and appropriate weight. The Gentle Fighter is a film for anyone looking for inspiration in stories about willpower and overcoming obstacles. It is a film that shows that true strength does not come from the size of muscles and the strength of tendons, but mainly from the mindset.