‘A Thousand Blows’ Review: A Period Boxing Drama That Swings Hard and Misses

Steven Knight’s A Thousand Blows often calls to mind HBO’s Warrior. They both take place in an inner-city slum at the end of the 19th century, though here its Victorian London rather than San Francisco. And both follow a newly arrived immigrant, in this case Jamaican boxer Hezekiah (Malachi Kirby), as he contends with discrimination, inequality, and criminality in his new home, often resulting in hand-to-hand combat. But while they may share a similar style, a combination of lackluster fight scenes and thin characterization ensures that A Thousand Blows never quite makes it into Warrior’s weight class.

Upon arriving in London, Hezekiah quickly finds himself drawn into the world of underground boxing, a sinister realm presided over by brothers Treacle Goodson (James Nelson Joyce) and Sugar (Stephen Graham). Before he knows it, he’s embroiled in a bitter blood feud with Sugar and recruited by criminal queenpin Mary Carr (Erin Doherty) to put his skills to use for the Forty Elephants, London’s famous all-female crime syndicate.

The show’s six episodes bounce energetically between in-ring rivalries and elaborate criminal schemes. Through it all, Kirby brings a charming aloofness to the lead role while Doherty slips between twinkle-eyed Cockney charm and scowling severity in the time it takes to flick open a switchblade. They both make for compelling characters in their own right, even if the romance that the series tries to stoke between them never really catches fire.

A Thousand Blows introduces the Goodson brothers as Hezekiah witnesses a bout featuring Treacle, a weaselly fighter who celebrates victories by chugging beer atop the turnbuckle, suggesting an old-timey Steve Austin. As the fight ends, Hezekiah is assured that there’s only one man more vicious than Treacle in all of London: his as-yet-unseen older brother. And you believe him the second Sugar appears on screen, with Graham packing an incredible amount of physical menace into a five-foot-four frame, complete with a stone-faced stare.

Unfortunately, conversations in A Thousand Blows have a tendency to devolve into overwritten monologues, across which characters outline their personal histories and current worldviews. And key figures often seem like little more than vessels for shallow social commentary: Hezekiah battles racism while Mary fights to assert herself as a woman in a man’s world, but the series struggles to imbue either of their experiences with anything original or insightful.

A large part of the show is built around Sugar’s rivalry with Hezekiah—they face off at the very start of the series and then circle each other for the rest of it—and yet that entire conflict is founded upon almost nothing. The most we get is a vague explanation from Sugar about he and Hezekiah being too similar, but despite the fact that both share traumatic backstories and are both very good at punching, the two of them are nothing alike.

Meaty sound work adds a visceral crunch to the show’s bare-knuckled bouts, but the choreography and camerawork struggle to convey the speed and ferocity of a real punch. Rapid cuts obscure more than they emphasize, with the in-ring narratives that are supposedly playing out—like when Hezekiah finds a way to use an opponent’s racist assumptions against him—rarely made visible to us. Any tactical nuance or emotional inflection that these fights might contain is quickly lost in the midst of another sluggish slugfest.