Fireworks (Hana-Bi)

FIREWORKS (HANA-BI) (1997)

I've written a bit more about Takeshi Kitano in my review of Gonin, and you should know that I started out the week seeing him in Gonin on Monday, and saw Hana-Bi on Friday. And ooo-la-la, I've got "Beat" Takeshi fever in a big way. By the way, I'm probably going to refer to the movie as Hana-Bi, it's Japanese title from now on, because the term, although it means fireworks, literally means "flower fire" and this movie is packed to bursting with both.

Beat Takeshi, Saint of Bullies Y'know, one of the great things about HK cinema is the whole "Saint/God" thing. These terms can be used for somebody who is the best of the best, and so there are movies like "God of Gamblers" and "God of Killers" and "Saint of Gamblers" "Saint of Adventurers." Very evocative stuff, which Garth Ennis has used to such advantage in his Preacher series with his "Saint of Killers" character. If I ever get the time and wherewithal, I would love to set up a web page devoted to japanese filmmaker/celebrity "Beat" Takeshi Kitano. And I think I would call the page "Saint of Bullies -- Takeshi Kitano." I've seen four of the seven movies he's made, and in those four Kitano plays a tough, stone-faced badass with a propensity for violence and a surprising sense of humor. The movies, using this central character for contrast, have had moments of great tenderness and sadness, and a rueful, Jarmusch sense of timing and character. This odd mix of tenderness and violence is, like the works of Peckinpah, very affective for male filmgoers, so everything I write should be taken with a grain of salt. I think Sonatine, the movie of his I last saw a couple of years ago, is a masterpiece. Although not completely sure, Hana-bi is, too.

In Hana-bi, Kitano plays a police detective, Nishi, whose wife is slowly dying. I'm not sure how much I want to give away beyond that, because much of the enjoyment and beauty of the film is in how Kitano reveals everything that happens to Nishii and his predicament. What I think is worth noting is that Kitano made this movie after a real-life motorcycle accident almost killed him. After a period of recuperation in which he was partially paralyzed, Kitano went on to make this film. Whereas Gonin strikes me as a very similar movie in that it's failed heist movie that really is about mortality, Hana-bi is about living with the knowledge of death. From what I can tell, Kitano shrewdly uses the cinematic equivalent of a split narrator, in which the protagonist and the narrator are complementary mirror images of each other. Although he doesn't narrate the movie, Nishi's best friend and fellow detective, Horibe, goes through a series of crises that seem to contrast and counterpoint Nishi's situation. As a consequence of his friend Nishi, Horibe has to come to terms with his life being utterly different than it was, seemingly losing everything but his life. His development and his salvation is a contrast to Nishi's struggle between violence and peace, brutality and tenderness.

I think I have to figure out more to say about this movie later, because I don't want to give too much of it away. What I can say is: see this movie, it will continue to reverberate through you.

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