Fireworks AKA Hana-bi: Tokyo FM Broadcasting Company/ BandaiVisual
Rating: USA: Unrated (probably R for violence)
Infamous Japanese auteur ‘Beat" Takeshi Kitano (Violent Cop, Sonatine, Boiling Point) is back after his near fatal 1994 motorcycle accident (which left the right side of his face partially paralyzed) with the sumptuous and mesmerizing Fireworks.
Kitano wrote, starred, directed, and edited this powerfully touching look into lives touched by tragedy and joy—often in the same instances—and like all of his previous work, it’s a haunting affair guaranteed to linger with the viewer for weeks after the initial viewing.
Beat Takeshi is Detective Nishi, a decorated Japanese police officer whose life is crumbling around him. His wife, Miyuki (Kayoko Kishimoto) is suffering from terminal cancer, their young daughter has died, and his partner, Horibe (Ren Osugi) has been shot and paralyzed—while covering for Nishi. And if all that wasn’t bad enough, he owes a fortune to a Yakuza loan shark—a debt which he can’t repay. So, in order to pay off his loan, and take his wife on one final road trip, he robs a local bank—setting in motion a series of events that will change the lives of all involved forever.
Like the rest of Kitano’s films, the plot here is really of minimal importance. Kitano’s movies are, in essence, intricately detailed character studies with bits of comedy, action, and drama thrown in—an effect that makes them quite lifelike. There’s a recurring minimalistic sensibility at work in each of these movies, making them the antithesis of their bombastic American and Hong Kong counterparts. While watching a film like Fireworks, it becomes readily apparent that it was made by someone Japanese. Everyone’s extremely stoic regardless of the situation, yet there’s always a barely perceptible sense of extreme emotional turbulence frothing just beneath the surface of the icy demeanors—a turbulence that can explode at any time…either through some brutal violence, lighthearted comedy, or a touching gesture. The fact that you’re never quite sure which emotion you’re going to get only makes the scenes that much more intriguing.
The film once again showcases Kitano’s almost Zen-like style of filmmaking—a style that tends to confound most mainstream American audiences. In essence, Kitano is never overly concerned with the climax or outcome of his films. It’s the voyage that matters—how you get from the beginning to the end. This stands in stark opposition to most American filmmaking sensibilities, where everything must build toward a final showdown, where all conflicts are resolved. Now, that’s not to say that Fireworks doesn’t climax—because it does. However, Kitano is more than content to take his time getting to the climax, and take some side trips along the way. These side trips usually take the form of long shots of things that seem to have little to do with the narrative—shots of the clouds, of flowers and paintings (Kitano did the paintings himself), of a school of fish jumping above the surface of the sea, etc. None of these things has anything to do with the cop storyline in a surface sense, but they do fit the Zen mentality—one that dictates that practitioners stop and enjoy the things that are around them—the little things that make life worth living.
There’s very little dialogue in Fireworks, as Kitano once again demonstrates that film is a visual medium and that action should be shown through what the character does, not what he says. The film features a plethora of static shots of the various characters-—shots where they do nothing, and say nothing, at least not until they’ve decided what their course of action should be. It’s a hypnotic style of filmmaking—one that takes a bit to get used to, but once you grow accustomed to it, makes perfect sense.
And in a film with so little dialogue, the ability of the actors becomes extremely important. Kitano’s chosen well here, as he, Kishimoto, Susumu Terrajima, and Osugi are all able to convey more in a look than most actors can in pages of prepared speech.
Regular Takeshi film composer Jo Hisaishi returns to provide the movie's haunting score. Like his previous work, it’s a minimalist effort, composed of piano, violin, and flute, yet it manages to fit every scene its used in, and much like the stoic acting, convey a multitude of moods with little change.
If anyone doubted that ‘Beat’ Takeshi Kitano was a brilliant filmmaker, or thought that the success of Sonatine was a fluke, here’s a film that shows them the error of their ways. Kitano has once again crafted a film that’s nearly impossible to categorize—one that features an ending that seems inevitable from the start, yet still manages to shock you anyway. I think Sonatine is a brilliant film, but Fireworks manages to be even better. This is, for all intents and purposes, Kitano's masterwork. Both films serve as shining examples that not only is Takeshi Kitano one of Japan’s finest filmmakers, but one of the world’s finest as well. Fireworks gets my highest recommendation.
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