The spirit of Akira Kurosawa lingers in To's loose-limbed, light-hearted update of Sanshiro Sugata. Perversely refusing to update that 1943 film's judo-obsessed plot, To assuredly creates a current world where judo is still the hottest thing in Hong Kong's nightclubs, arcades, and triad dens. Ex-judo champion Szeto has exiled himself from the frenetic high-powered judo world, whiling away his nights in a drunken stupor until a chance for redemption arrives in the youthful forms of feisty Tony (“I'm Tony; I want to fight,” he chirps) and aspiring singer Mona. A few hundred judo fights later, and nearly everyone is still left standing, albeit with their arms in slings. Taking the usual gangster milieu and lightening it up until it's nearly parodic (“the gentle way” is the Chinese idiom for judo), Throw Down is arguably To's most pleasurable, accessible film, a tribute to the kind of old-fashioned storytelling in which tales of outlaws and drifters still have room for redemption, humor, and sentiment.