Million Dollar Baby is based on a short story from the collection Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner, by FX Toole, a former trainer and professional "cut man" (the guy in the fighter's corner who stops the bleeding between rounds).

  Toole's writing conveys at turns the brutality and beauty of the so-called sweet science. So Eastwood knew it was crucial that any film based on the book had to be authentic. Today's movie audiences are just too sports-savvy-thanks to ESPN and super-slo-mo instant replays-to accept anything less, meaning movies are striving harder to appear more realistic (the bone-crushing documentary feel of Friday Night Lights, for example).

  He was convinced the audience would not accept anything less than an actor trained intensively in the sport in the lead role. "I liked Hilary as an actress, and after I met with her I felt she had the work ethic," Eastwood said of his star. And Swank was up to the challenge. An Academy Award winner for the gender-bending drama Boys Don't Cry, Swank trained for three months to prepare for the role-four hours of boxing and weight training everyday. And her diet became heavy in protein, even calling for her to get up from bed every night to drink a specially formulated milkshake. "One of my big passions as an actor is embodying the character," Swank told the Washington Post, "so I just knew in order for this to really work, I really had to pass as a boxer."

  As Toole wrote in his book: "What was it, and how much exactly did it take, before some kid with a dream of glory could learn enough to climb between the ropes?" And how hard is it, not only to train and to fight, but also to learn the science of the game? "Damn hard. And underneath it all is the question What makes a fighter?"

  Eastwood, Swank and Freeman are set to show us at least a part of the answer.

- Rui Umezawa