Action & Adventure > Kitano, 'Beat' Takeshi Action & Adventure

Successfully modernising a legend

Advantages: stunning visual attention to detail, creative editing
Disadvantages: erratic variation in style and genre may not be to everyone's taste

...Set in 19th century Japan, Zatoichi [Takeshi Kitano] is a blind masseur who arrives in a remote mountain town. Here he discovers the Ginzo gang are terrorizing the locals with extortionate protection fees, aided by a skilled samurai ronin, Hattori [Tadanobu Asano]. After befriending unlucky gambler Shinkichi [Guadalcanal Taka], he meets two geisha who have sworn to avenge the deaths of the parents. With an inevitable confrontation, Zatoichi must ...
...like his earlier Yakuza efforts. Zatoichi himself is a brilliantly cool and unhurried hero who appears always in total control, played in traditional Kitano Hana-bi style, a subdued personality that suddenly emerges confrontations. The violence occurs in his traditionally short and sudden bursts, often gory but not purely gratuitous, and he also includes a few trademark scenes where the violence occurs outside of the frame. Finally, he weaves in ...

PriyanPhoenix 27.06.2007 · Read full review
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Review of Zatoichi (DVD)

True Masterpiece

Advantages: Possibly best ever Kitano movie
Disadvantages: None whatsoever

Films previous to this made by Kitano included Violent Cop, Sonatine, and Boiling Point, and if you've seen those 3, you'll notice the difference here. This film was made after his motorcycle accident which left him with a facial twitch which is evident, but one can see the change in style brought about as a result of it. Takeshi's character, Nishi, is a cop whose wife is terminally ill, and whose daughter died earlier. As he tries to deal with his ...
...partner gets shot and as a result is crippled. Nishi blames himself for this, as he was visiting his wife in hospital at the time that his partner got shot. The full story unfolds in short flashback sequences, and Nishi feels snowballing guilt. To add to his problems, he owes the Yakuza a lot in debt, and has to go about repaying it. The story is mainly about how Nishi decides to spend time with his wife who hasn't got long left to live, as he contemplates ...

sghosh 04.07.2006 · Read full review
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Review of Hana-Bi (DVD)

Much more than a Japanese Dirty Harry

Advantages: Kitano's 1st. A great piece of genre cinema.
Disadvantages: None.

...I can think of. VIOLENT COP was his very first film. This release was a bit of a shock for Japan. Previous to Violent Cop, Kitano had been a huge stand-up comedy star. It looked as if he had given up comedy altogether with this film: a dark and hyper-violent tale of a lone cop against a bunch of merciless yakuzas. He would however return to comedy in between films, as well as various other talk-shows and popular Japanese TV. Comical and slapstickish ...
...as well as directing them. Violent Cop is no exception; the director plays the part of Azuma, a solitary and slighly crazed police inspector. He roams about the police headquarters, miserable and unmoved, very much as he does through the labyrinth of Tokyo's skyscrapers. When a tramp is beaten-up by a gang of vicious youths, he calmy waits in the shadows without intervening. He then trails one of the teenagers back to his mother's house and proceeds ...

gantzgraf 31.03.2008 · Read full review
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Review of Violent Cop (Subtitled) (Wide Screen) (DVD)

A Japanese Masterpiece Kitano At His Very Best

Advantages: Wonderful direction, pace, scenery, score, sound, everything really
Disadvantages: None at all

...most of his films. Sonatine doesn't pretend to be a true action movie with loads of pointless violence and one-liner plots. Japanese films, whether good or bad, have subtle touches that you very rarely see in American mainstream films. "Beat" relies on the abstract rather than the action-visual. It would be too easy to turn this film into a kind of Reservoir Dogs meets Black Rain meets The Godfather, with lots of visual over-the-top violence and ...
...too. Instead the audience has to concentrate a great deal harder to see through all the symbolism and appreciate that an "empty" picture is worth a 1000 unspoken words. Yakuza, are really condemned men - they know they will die soon and so don't fear death as "Beat" points out during one of his short but aposite conversations with the only woman in the film, Aya Kokumai. The symbolism of impending death for these men of "honour" is only hinted ...

Sonatine 26.02.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Sonatine (DVD)

If you like Minority Report - this is for you!

Advantages: Good storyline
Disadvantages: Ending

BEWARE! The following review contains spoilers and plot! The film starts with Luke Gibson (played by Cuba Gooding Jnr) and his pregnant wife getting into their car. Moments later they are involved in a car crash. Luke has severe head trauma and his wife dies. He is taken to hospital but they find that he has no insurance to pay for treatment. He will die unless alternative treatment is found. This is where Hope Industries come in. They say they ...
...They place an implant in the back of his head. The results of this experiment are Amnesia for Luke and advertisements that appear right in front of Lukes eyes. Luke thinks he is going mad until one of the visions he has helps him to escape difficult situations. Luke is finally introduced to his rescuers, punk rockers Red and her brother Blue. They are helped by a young man called Keyboard and his father. They begin to try and get Luke to remember ...

rufusredcoat 07.11.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Hardwired (DVD)