(aka "Fireworks" )

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/direct-chair/kitano.htm
Japan 1997

“I didn't realize how much I'd missed Japanese movies until I saw Takeshi Kitano's Hana-Bi… Here was a film, in the unlikely form of a violent crime thriller crossed with a domestic melodrama, that captured a sense of sublime transcendency not much felt since the golden age of Mizoguchi, Ozu and Naruse. Yet Kitano's sensibility remains resolutely modern; his is a world of jagged discontinuity, of harsh contrasts in tone and style, that is deeply indebted to post-war ironists like Oshima and Imamura. In a sense, Kitano is the one-man embodiment of the great contemporary period the Japanese cinema never had.” (David Kehr)

 

When receiving the Golden Lion in Venice, Kitano said: “Now, I am a master”. Kitano was, and still is, very critical about his own work and needs complete confidence in himself. With “Sonatine” he felt that he had finished his apprentice period and had reached a for him acceptable level of understanding film, with “Hana-Bi”, he had finished his master period and graduated with honours, in form of the award. Indeed, Kitano was now a master.

 

“Hana-Bi” is a very personal film, so personal, that I see it bordering exorcism, as Kitano’s inner demons are being confronted. Not surprisingly, the entire first part of the film is told thru complex ellipses noting upon reflection and after thought. As Nishi, who almost has lost everything, thinks about what he has lost and what he has left, so is Kitano; And where Nishi robs a bank and uses the money to take his dying wife on a last trip thru Japan, Kitano made “Hana-Bi”.

 

It is not without reason that Kehr mentions Mizoguchi and Ozu alongside Kitano. Mootori’s concept of “mono no aware”, that we experience the wholeness of life by encountering things (mono) and being sensitive to them (no aware), hence having them moving us, is an integrated motif in both directors films, and also here in “Hana-Bi”. While we see in Nishi, it is even more visible in the side plot about Horibe, who being paralysed and bound to a wheelchair rediscovers the world that surrounds him and expressing it thru painting (what Kitano actually began doing himself after the accident).

 

The story is simple: Nishi is an ex-cop, who has lost just about everything, and facing the death of his wife, who has cancer, he decides rob a bank, thus being able to travel Japan with his wife, feeling life once more before it all ends.

 

One of the best Japanese films ever made, “Hana-Bi” is the central work of Kitano, both as an artist and as a person. It liberated him, it allowed him to have fun again, which he sure did in his following film “Kikujiro” and it sat him free of the past. He certainly is a master.

Henrik Sylow of kitanotakeshi.com

Posters

 

 

Theatrical Release Date: March 20, 1998

Reviews    More Reviews  DVD Reviews

 
DVD Review: Madman (Directors Suite) - Region 0 - PAL

Big thanks to Henrik Sylow for the Review!

DVD Box Cover

Distribution

Madman

Region 0 - PAL
Runtime 1:38:44 (4% PAL speedup)
Video

1.85:1 Original Aspect Ratio

16X9 enhanced
Average Bitrate: 6.87 mb/s
PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s

NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate

Audio 2.0 Dolby Digital Japanese, 5.1 Dolby Digital Japanese
Subtitles English, None
Features Release Information:
Studio: Madman

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen anamorphic - 1.85:1

Edition Details:
• Documentary (27:15 / 4:3)
• - Trailershow (10:01)
• - Making of (17:14)
• International Trailer (1:57 / 4:3)
• Essay by Henrik Sylow

DVD Release Date: September 21, 2005
Transparent Amarey Case

Chapters 10

 

 

Comments The transfer is 100% identical to previous release by Madman (compared here), and as the old transfer, it differs from the superior Japanese and Korean transfers, mainly lacking the blue filter.

Madman has added the 5.1 Dolby Digital sound on this edition, which adds a lot to the atmosphere by Hisaishi's score. While a lot of the film is in almost mono front, the score really comes to live.

The additional material consists of the same approx. 30-minute program, which also is on the former Madman edition. Its a trailershow of Kitano's trailers up until "Hana-bi", then the Making Of program, which also is to be found on the Japanese, Korean and US DVDs.

I have to disqualify myself from reviewing the quality of essay, as I have written it. It is a 5 page essay, which comes as a folder, where I note upon Hana-bi as a flirtation with Chikamatsu, as a shinju-mono and go into details on the various significances of the ending.

While Bandai and Spectrum have a superior picture, Madman has with the addition of 5.1 Dolby Digital sound and solid additional material made one beautiful edition of this great film.

 - Henrik Sylow

 

 





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