Bullfighting is a dangerous affair, every time a matador gets into the ring with a bull he risks his life, and no one knows this better than Antonio Barrera. He holds the title as being “Most Gored Bullfighter in History” 23 times he has been gored, seriously facing death, and every time he has survived. Director Ido Mizrahy’s Gored follows Barrera as a now modern family man while investigating the psychology of the matador, and what drives these men to become so passionate about fighting the bulls.

The average person’s response to a ferocious bull charging at them would be to run, or perhaps try to kill the animal in desperation, but the matador has overcome these innate instincts. He must not only stay in the ring, he must taunt the bull, performing an intricate routine that closely resembles a delicate dance. He will try to kill the bull eventually, but not right away. Not until the performance calls for it. It is the danger and the intensity of the event that Barrera says kept him coming back to bullfighting; he gets a rush that has become like a drug, and he gets to share this high with a roaring, wild crowd.

Mizrahy’s film shows ample footage of fights, along with explanations about basic techniques of bullfighting and the meaning of the sport in two bullfighting hotspots, Mexico and Spain. There are some scenes of Barrera narrowly escaping injury and killing the bull on screen, which are graphic, but the most intense scenes are when Barrera is not so lucky. After having gotten to know Barrera, and begun to understand him, we are shown scenes of him being seriously gored. Many gasps and eye coverings from the audience are guaranteed.

But these scenes of major injury were in his past, and the film uses these to look past and at Barrera in the modern day, as a family man who has decided to retire. He has earned quite the nice life from his career as a bullfighter, and does justice to his reasoning to give-up the sport: his wife is constantly worried sick, and he cannot take the risks of the sport now that he has young children, but it is not long before Barrera is offered one-last match in Mexico, and as we follow him there we cheer that he has it in him, to make it through one-more match.

Gored will be available on demand on March 1.