Set in a near-deserted, Covid Tokyo, Small, Slow But Steady is a beautiful study of the small, slow but steady young woman Keiko who has been deaf since birth. She takes to boxing as a way to break out of her isolated world, but then has to face up to her loss of the desire to win and the closure of her gym, run by her major supporter.
"Anyone committed to the more contemplative, emotionally refined end of the current Japanese art cinema spectrum will find this against-the-grain study genuinely alluring." - Jonathan Romney, Screen International