Saw this at the Imagine film festival 2024 in Amsterdam. The plot itself may not be interesting or relevant, but it is shown in a beautiful way, yet not for the faint of heart, with lots of blood and gore. Even fatalities can be expected, so not everyone (euphemism alert) is still standing in the end. The supernatural twist in the end may not satisfy everyone, however, but the pentagram in the basement predicted that something bad was planned all along, and dark powers need dead corpses as an unwritten rule.
Outside normal arenas and without official rules, this type of wrestling can be very destructive, as we see here. The audience cheers, whatever happens, and doesn't mind open wounds, reams of blood, broken limbs, or other serious injuries. Previously, I always assumed that a lot of theater was involved when I saw it on TV. That may be so for the official wrestling matches, but what we watch here is beyond mercy for the losers. Moreover, it was planned from the outset by the event organizers that five fatally wounded were to be "produced" for the pentagram to complete.
Lucky for us, and for the tension we were waiting for, the division between winners and losers is not along the lines that were foreseen by the one who presided over the match. The visiting group of wrestlers was more creative and resourceful than we thought at first.
All in all, though I am not interested in this type of sport, it was interesting to watch this story and all its developments, most of which were unexpected and unplanned. The supernatural twist did not harm either to arrive at a 4/5 score for the audience award when leaving the venue.
