Hana-Bi [Fireworks] **** (1997, Takeshi Kitano, Kayoko Kishimoto, Ren Osugi) – Classic Movie Review 6525

After the bright young Kids Return (1996), Japanese writer-director-star Takeshi Kitano (Beat Takeshi) turns in a world-weary old man’s movie in this meditation on lives at the end of their tether. For Hana-Bi, Takeshi Kitano was the winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1997.

An interlinked group of couple relationships are smashed by such slings and arrows of outrageous fortune as sudden violence, terminal illness and death. The mood is desperately chilly as the melancholic central ex-cop character Nishi (Beat Takeshi) moves towards his own inevitable suicide as his wife (Kayoko Kishimoto) moves towards her death from leukaemia.

Meanwhile Nishi has business to take care of – settling some outstanding accounts by killing and maiming a gang of yakuza and robbing a bank single-handedly to pay for some comfort for the victims of earlier acts of violence between cops and gangs.

One character, Takeshi’s crippled ex-cop buddy Horibe (Ren Osugi), shot in a stakeout, paints to fill his boring existence. These pictures were actually painted by Takeshi himself, seemingly indicating that the director is attracted to their rather banal images.

This arty film, though larded with chilling sudden violence and a potent crime setting, doesn’t deliver the edge-of-seat crime movie genre thrills we previously expected of Takeshi, and the film retreads his Sonatine (1993) to less effect. With its memorable in-depth characters, and its mood of despairing pessimism, it is interesting and unnerving, but it isn’t exactly exciting. Takeshi, however, does play the central character to practised perfection, and all the acting is spot on.

The Japanese word Hanabi means fireworks; as spelled here with a hyphen it is a symbol of the film’s themes – hana (flower) is the symbol of life and bi (fire) represents gunfire, a symbol of death.

Also in the cast are Susumu Terajima, Tetsu Watanabe, Hakuryu, Taro Itsumi, Yasuei Yakushiji, Makota Ashikawa and Yuko Daike.

It is shot by Hideo Yamamoto, produced by Takio Yoshida and scored by Jo Hisaishi.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6525

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