The Boxing Girls of Kabul

The Boxing Girls of Kabul is an engrossing glimpse into post-Taliban Afghanistan, where life is freer than before, but women can still be stoned and hung for perceived immorality. The 3 young boxers are both encouraged and criticized, and as such demonstrate the precarious state of social pressure in a poor, religious, fractured country. Their fathers and their coach, despite serious threats against them, are all determined that the girls have the right to fight, and so seem similar to the father of Malala Yousafzai -- liberal people in an oppressive society.

In the narrative itself, the girls are at once inspiring. brave, naive, unrealistic, and seen through a certain lens, pathetic. With only amateur training, few resources, primitive equipment, and not even a ring in which to spar, their hopeful trips to tournaments in Vietnam and Kazakhstan become sobering collisions with reality, facing better trained, faster, fitter girls.

So, a story about the human condition, about brave young people, about coping in a hostile society, all in 50 fascinating minutes. Produced by the National Film Board of Canada, it is on Netflix. It is worth seeing.

I can't lie, this pisses me off. Tell me why, after everything, they kept losing and losing and losing. It doesn't make sense. All the effort, all the time spent, all the planning-yet nothing seemed to work. It's like hitting a wall over and over again, expecting something to give, but it just keeps coming back with more disappointment. No matter how much you try, no matter how many times you adjust and pivot, the losses just kept piling up. There's something incredibly frustrating about putting everything into something and still not seeing any results. You keep asking yourself, "What are we missing? What's the missing piece that will finally make this work?" But it feels like you're just spinning your wheels, going nowhere. Every small victory gets overshadowed by bigger defeats, and it's hard not to get disheartened. And then there's the document. This document is useless. After all the work, all the time spent gathering information, writing, and analyzing, it just doesn't deliver what was expected. It's supposed to be the guide, the roadmap that shows the way forward. But instead, it feels like a burden. It's just more paperwork, more things to sift through, and at the end of the day, it doesn't answer any of the questions. It's like someone gave you a tool that was meant to fix a problem, but instead, it makes everything worse. The frustration only grows when you realize the resources, time, and energy invested in something that feels so utterly pointless. Everything about it feels "so buns"-a term that captures the sense of something being entirely disappointing, useless, or just not up to par. It's almost as if the document was designed to highlight just how far off-track everything is, instead of helping to course-correct. And yet, even though the situation feels like a sinking ship, there's still this glimmer of hope. "Big ups tho and good luck on the war." That line is where you find a bit of perspective. Despite everything that's gone wrong, despite the losses and the frustrations, there's still respect, still an acknowledgment of the fight. "Big ups" is like a nod of recognition, a way of saying, "I see the effort, I see the hustle, even if it hasn't paid off yet." It's a way of offering respect even in the face of failure. It's like acknowledging that, even though things are tough right now, the battle is still being fought. And the phrase "good luck on the war" feels like a parting shot, not in the sense of giving up, but as an acknowledgment of the ongoing struggle. It's like saying, "I know it's hard, but I hope you win this in the end." It's a little bit of encouragement in the middle of chaos. Because that's the thing about struggles-they're never easy, and they rarely go as planned. But that doesn't mean they don't matter. Sometimes, the most valuable lessons come from the toughest situations. You might look back at this moment and think, "That was a waste of time," but it's often in those moments of frustration and disappointment where growth happens. Maybe the document didn't help, maybe the team kept losing, but maybe the real victory comes from learning how to deal with those setbacks, how to push through even when it feels like everything's falling apart. At the end of the day, there's always another battle to fight, and there's always another chance to try again. So, even though this situation feels like a failure, there's still a sense of perseverance. The fight isn't over. It might not be smooth sailing from here, but that doesn't mean there isn't a path forward. Keep pushing, keep learning, and keep showing up. You never know when the tides will turn.

This documentary begins with contagious hope as we, the viewers, discover the enthusiasm that drives these girls to take on boxing. As the film continues to follow the girls as they prepare for various competitions, though, the challenges that they face are little by little uncovered. This movies explores more than just the difficulties of competition. It also exposes the fear, the social challenges, and the economic difficulties that the girls need to face in order to continue boxing.

This documentary is cleverly done, and captures its audience in a way that few documentaries do. The fantastic storytelling, however, comes at the expense of offering the audience more information.