Clobbering its way into Tallinn Black Nights’ main competition, Hüseyin Tabak’s Gipsy Queen might not be the boxing movie to end them all, but it still holds its own, for the most part.
This is mainly thanks to Roma actress Alina Serban’s intensity – and her ability to take a punch or two when required – here cast as thirty-something Ali, who has been disowned by her father and is introduced to us screaming in pain as she is about to give birth to her second child.
Forced to do whatever it takes to feed her two kids (with scenes of their misery interestingly portrayed through child-like drawings), after a while,
Ali works out a bearable routine: doing odd jobs and sharing a flat with another woman (Irina Kurbanova as a wannabe performer with moves straight from Kill Bill), as nobody would rent to Roma people.
She all but forgets about her promising past, until she gets a new gig in a nightclub – hiding an underground boxing ring in its midst.
