Rickson Gracie: Choke chronicles the Physical and mental preparation of Rickson Gracie, Todd Hayes, and Kiochiro Kimura for competition in the Vale Tudo Fighting Championships of 1995. It's a behind-the-scenes-look, which delves into their hopes, fears, and desires for their respective futures. The no-holds-barred fighting tournaments are known for blood... bloody combatants, bloody rings, and cheering, bloodthirsty crowds. This desire for carnage led to massive media attention and large pay-per-view purchases in the late 1990's.

Since the turn of the century created more real concerns, such as "will the missiles fire and cause Armageddon", "will the stock market crash", and "will I be able to get money from an ATM", opposition to these events seems to have disappeared from local media, thus the proliferation of NHB (No-Holds-Barred) Sites.

The primary focus of Choke is Rickson Gracie, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, who has never been beaten in 400 consecutive fights. The viewer follows Gracie as he prepares for the Tudo, between dojo and home in Brazil to the mountain retreat in Japan, just before the competition. We are immersed in his environment with interviews with family members, such as his wife, voicing her apprehension about his competing, and his father, recanting the history of his family's style of fighting.

Rickson Gracie treats the viewer to his philosophy of life and training in such a way that it does not come across as a tired Tae Bo video. The beach scenes are reminiscent of those exercise shows on cable that always seem to be in someplace exotic. The dojo scenes are sweaty and gritty, and show his high level of dedication to his art. The viewer is brought into the locker rooms before, during, and after bouts involving the contestants -- it's a candid look at what goes on at these events from a competitor's perspective.

Everything is included, from one of the trainers arguing with the judging council over a potential rule change to Todd Hayes having to discuss with his trainer his removing himself from the tourney because of a shoulder injury, then explaining to Japanese media why he withdrew without looking like he felt that he just couldn't "handle" Gracie. Seeing Kimura surrounded by reporters while sobbing because of his loss to Gracie, of which he never truly had a chance of winning, expounding on the greatness of the Brazilian style of Jiu-Jitsu, leads one to ask, "who are really the bloodthirsty ones?"

One real shining sub-plot is the survival of Yuki Nakai, the Shooto Federation Shootwrestling champion. His diminutive size does deceive as he uses expert technique combined with the ability to take a great amount of physical punishment to defeat opponents up to twice his size, to get to the finals.

But he was no match for Gracie.... No one was.

Notes

Rickson Gracie: CHOKE Starring Rickson Gracie, Todd Hayes, and Kiochiro Kimura; Not Rated; Directed by Robert Goodman; Written and Produced by Larry Golin; Out now on Manga Entertainment - Ryko Distribution; running time of 98 minutes.