Sonatine (ソナチネ) (1993)

In my review of Takeshi Kitano's take on the traditional Zatoichi mythology, I touched on the absurdist elements of that film, and the reactions they generated amongst viewers. Audiences have been conditioned over time to expect that every component in a film should have some purpose relating to plot. To a casual observer, Kitano's signature divergences from plot may seem incongruous or even foolhardy. The truth of the matter, however, is that Kitano's body of work is among the most deliberate and meticulous I've ever seen, and a close analysis of his films uncovers the deep thematic exploration that resides within his sometimes jarring style.

After watching Sonatine, Kitano's 1993 masterpiece, those absurdist scenes in Zatoichi make more sense within the context of Kitano's creative world and are, in addition, even more pleasing to me. Sonatine is a thoroughly existential work that makes full use of cinema's potential to bend its own "rules" in order to strike at the heart of an emotion or idea, regardless of how it alters narrative structure.

The film centers on tough middle-aged yakuza Murakama, played by Kitano himself (who also wrote and directed the picture). Murakama, a Tokyo family boss (the Japanese yakuza differs from the Italian Mafia here; "clan" is the umbrella term for a large organization, whereas "family" denotes the smaller fragmentary gangs), is dispatched to Okinawa by his superiors to help a clan affiliate who is engaged in a turf war.

Murakama has all the traits of a man who has grown tired of his routine, his career, his life. He is cold and irritable. He is insolent towards his superiors. In one scene, he openly questions his boss's motives, while the man looks on with forced regal detachment. Murakama is right to question his boss, however. His family's operations have become lucrative and the boss is sending him and his men to Okinawa to get them out of the way so the boss can take over. Because he has stopped caring, Murakama goes. "I'm worn out," he admits to his lieutenant and personal confidant, Ken.

The Okinawa clan affiliates welcome the hard Tokyo gunmen with soft drinks and ice cream, in a brilliant scene where Kitano lets a shot looking out the front window of a bus linger, and linger, and linger. Although the Okinawa boss assures the Tokyo men that the whole thing will blow over, the rival clan (who remain, notably, unseen) notices their arrival and takes it as a declaration of war. There is a series of brutal slayings, shootings, and bombings, and the surviving men, including Murakama, retreat to a vacant beach house to lay low for a while.

The bulk of the remainder of the film follows the characters in this pastoral setting as they ruminate on life in a series of brilliantly staged scenes. The film shakes off its plot without much concern, and becomes an existentialist study. It is done quite elegantly. In their time at the beach, the characters are given a window of reflection that their counterparts in other action films can never fit in between shootings and car chases. It is fascinating to see what they do with their downtime, these men whose lives are overfilled with the business of violence.

This portion of the film is devoted to scenes of almost unprecedented whimsy, with the gangsters playing games on the beach, reading comic books, and singing with each other. I expect that many viewers, expecting a fast-paced yakuza shoot-em-up, would find this section of the film extremely jarring. Going back to what I said at the beginning of this review, audiences cannot help but bring a certain level of expectation into a film, particularly a genre picture. In what is ostensibly a yakuza action film, Kitano devotes lengthy sequences to silly games shot with his signature lingering camera style.

Like that old jazz music cliche about the importance of hearing the notes the musician doesn't play, it is crucial to keep in mind that these playful sequences, which at first seem almost obscenely diversionary, are bookended by extremely terse and brutal sections that depict quite a lot of death. The point, therefore, is that while the gangsters play, the shadow of death both past and future is hanging over the proceedings. Most of the games (shooting a can off a friend's head, sumo wrestling, Roman candle fights) are simply reworked versions of real-world violence that is depicted elsewhere in the film. These connections between two things that are very visceral and "real", play and death, (similar in that they are both purely experiential) underscore Kitano's theme of life and death being intertwined and at times indistinguishable.

Consider this pivotal exchange that takes place about halfway through the film, between Murakawa and Miyuki, a woman who becomes his love interest:

Miyuki: It must be great to not be afraid of shooting people. Not being afraid of killing people means not being afraid of killing yourself, right? You're tough...I love tough guys.

Murakawa: If I were tough, I wouldn't carry a gun.

Miyuki: But you can shoot fast.

Murakawa: I shoot fast because I get scared first.

Miyuki: ...But you're not afraid of dying.

Murakawa: When you're scared all the time, you almost wish you were dead.

It may seem strange, given the nature of this conversation, that there is upbeat music playing in the background, and the lines are delivered with smiles and chuckles. Like much of Kitano's work, the atmosphere here is decidedly playful. Kitano rose to fame as a comedian, and even in very serious pieces like Sonatine, his unique comedic outlook permeates through gloomy subject matter. In other words, it takes a certain kind of person to get the joke of life.

Among the many intriguing devices Kitano employs, one of the most fascinating is a sort of time compression that occurs, pointedly, twice in the film. Early on there is a scene where Murakama uses a crane to dunk a man into Tokyo Bay; a mahjong parlor owner who had insulted him earlier. After dryly agreeing that a person can hold their breath for about two minutes, Murakawa tells the crane operator to dunk the man for two minutes. Rather than letting the two minutes pass in real time, however, Kitano simply cuts and the man is raised spluttering and clinging on to life. This is repeated immediately, with the lost time again unaccounted for, only this time the man comes up dead. Murakawa turns from a conversation he is having and observes unconcernedly, "Wow, we killed him...it doesn't matter. Cover it up." Then he walks away.

The time compression is repeated when Murakawa, taking a walk on the beach in Okinawa at night, observes a rape. A man drags a woman out of a car and throws her on the sand. She is protesting but he holds her down and rips her dress. Cut to Murakawa, who begins to walk casually by. The rapist enters the frame and says, "So you were there the whole time?" Even though we never see or hear the rape, we can assume it occurred, but Kitano cut it from the picture, in the same way he cut the drowning of the mahjong parlor owner. If not for the earlier drowning scene, the viewer would think that Murakawa interrupts the rape before it begins. As it stands it is ambiguous, although he only shows the events leading up to it and the aftermath. Why does he do this?

To answer this, it needs to be pointed out that this time compression device elegantly combines a few of Kitano's main goals with the film. The first is that, while the film's narrative is dependent upon and moved forward by ferocious acts of violence, Kitano doesn't revel in shootings and mayhem. He depicts violence elsewhere in the film, and quite graphically, but in Sonatine violence is always regarded with the utmost impassivity. The film has a number of shootings, beatings, stabbings, and murders, all of them gory and brutal. This is, after all, the nature of such things. However, while an ordinary action film director would dwell on these events by using quick cuts and close-ups, and try to lend them gravity by employing a lot of horrified reaction shots, Kitano conspicuously avoids both of these things entirely. Kitano is known for dwelling on long shots, and even in action scenes he is comfortable regarding them from a distance. Furthermore, during every scene of violence, the faces of the characters are completely unmoved.

The second motive Kitano has in employing the time compression device is his use of mirroring to contextualize "current" events that are happening onscreen as the viewer watches, and to re-contextualize "past" events that have already occurred. By using the technique twice, he gives a greater context to the rape scene that wouldn't have existed without the earlier drowning scene. Conversely, by having Murakawa witness the rape scene, Kitano draws a contrast to the drowning scene, where Murakawa was the aggressor.

As I said earlier, Kitano doesn't concern himself with the gratuity that usually accompanies violence in film. He underlines this point in the starkest manner possible: the climactic gun battle at the end of the film is almost entirely offscreen. The camera regards the building where it is taking place impassively. In a wide shot, the viewer sees the dark upper floor of the building illuminated with the muzzle flash of guns, but the actual fight is depicted for only a few seconds. This partially mirrors an earlier scene on the beach where the characters play with Roman candles at night, playfully staging a mock gun battle. The orange flashes of the real gun battle recall those of the fireworks from the play battle.

A pessimistic reading of these equivalencies might suggest that Kitano is saying that death permeates life, even the diversions we engage in to try and distance ourselves from the inevitable. This may be a bit facile. With this film, Kitano thoroughly explores the themes of existential dread, authenticity, and determinism, in a gleefully implicit and non-didactic manner. Camus famously said that the only real philosophical problem is suicide. Kitano supercharges this idea by temporarily removing a gang of killers from the killing field, and allowing them to examine their own existence. Men who are unafraid of death, who are surrounded by it every day, must after all construct identities that preclude killing themselves. Failing to do so would drive one to the very heart of Camus' problem.

This was an early directorial work for Kitano, and you can see all the elements of his style taking shape. When framing characters, he often centers them in the middle of the shot for an immersive, conversational feel. He uses a lot of very dry reaction shots, something he revisited with Kikujiro. As I've stated several times in this review, Kitano's signature is lingering shots, often wide shots. He uses them to great effect in Sonatine, which is a film that requires the viewer to examine things beyond the surface level, and the lingering shots provide a nice visual metaphor for this. The acting is superb. In particular I enjoyed the performance of Susumu Terajima, who plays the Murakawa Family lieutenant Ken. The character has a nice, gradual arc, with Ken starting as a slick, hard-faced criminal and eventually devolving into laid-back boyishness. The actors as a whole all seem to have a great understanding of the film's dark but not-quite-literal tone, and they are able to develop distinctive personalities.

When I reviewed Zatoichi I called Takeshi Kitano fearless. He is also a genius. There is something inherently romantic and admirable about a man who writes, directs, and stars in his own film. That such a film would be as brilliant as Sonatine seems like almost too much to hope for.

Throne of Blood (蜘蛛巣城) (1957)

Akira Kurosawa's Japanese contemporaries often airily dismissed his work as "too Western". They pointed to his acceptance by an increasingly global film audience, as well as his alleged sentimentality, as evidence. It seems obvious to me that these criticisms were simply the sour grapes of jealous peers who were envious of Kurosawa's ability to hit upon human truths, and appeal to all audiences; not just the Japanese. Indeed, Kurosawa's perfect intersection of artistry and popular appeal is unmatched throughout cinema of any nationality or time period.

With that in mind, it is interesting to look at Kurosawa's 1957 Macbeth adaptation, Throne of Blood. Kurosawa had a fascination with Shakespeare (culminating with Ran), that most emblematic of all Western writers. Maybe this stemmed from the fact that neither man was particularly concerned with the constraints of cultural boundaries (Shakespeare less so, as it happens); they were primarily preoccupied with expressing more universal human qualities and flaws. Both artists' work lends itself so easily to adaptation by foreigners: Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood's breakthrough Fistful of Dollars, which was a remake of Kurosawa's Yojimbo, transposed from Edo-era Japan to the American West, is a prime example. Similarly, Kurosawa adapted Shakespeare with ease, with Throne of Blood proving he could do so with grace and style.

The story of a regicide takes on vast new significance transposed against the honor-bound backdrop of feudal Japan. It should be said that the film is not a strict interpretation, and there are a couple minor changes, but Macbeth is the sole source material, and any analysis of Throne of Blood must start and end with Macbeth.

Shakespeare's play, it is generally agreed upon, features Macbeth's driving ambition as the primary thematic force. Throne of Blood, on the other hand, is less about ambition and more about the motivating power of male insecurity. This is largely due to the performance of the great Toshiro Mifune in the lead role. He is agitated and nervous, easily wounded by any questioning of his manhood. He is an overcompensator, evidenced by his elaborate suits of armor late in the film. He doesn't seem motivated by any real desire for power, he is simply terrified of seeming weak. Prestige is just a byproduct of his terrible actions.

Central to both play and film, of course, is the character of Lady Macbeth (here named Asaji), played in the film by Isuzu Yamada, who audiences may recognize, along with most of the other actors in the film, from several other Kurosawa movies. It's a fantastic performance. The ease with which she overpowers Washizu's mind with suggestion and doubt is a sight to behold. Washizu often looks startled and horrified, as if Asaji's paranoid claims dredge up suppressed suspicions within himself. This is likely the case.

The collaboration between Kurosawa and Mifune is the greatest in all cinema. Kurosawa is the greatest director who ever lived and Mifune is the finest screen actor of all time. Their 16 films together are a towering achievement. Both brought out the absolute best in each other, and Throne of Blood is a perfect example of Kurosawa's deliberate technique colliding flawlessly with Mifune's boundless dynamism.

As the Macbeth equivalent Lord Washizu, Mifune is light-years away from his trademark role as the laconic, jocular ronin in Yojimbo and Sanjuro; as well as the swaggering, charmingly self-aware wannabe samurai Kikuchiyo in Seven Samurai. In Throne of Blood, Mifune demonstrates his astounding range. He is gaunt and staring, manic-depressive and menacing. His face twists and distorts in rage and disgust and terror. Characteristically for Mifune, he throws himself into the role with such unrestrained violence that the viewer worries frequently and irrationally for his safety. Not completely without reason: Mifune famously insisted that the climactic scene where Washizu is shot with a hail of arrows be filmed with actual arrows. He was not actually pierced by arrows, obviously, but the arrows hitting the wall around him as he runs around were completely real, as was the expression of terror on his face.

No director in film history has shot atmospherics nearly as well as Kurosawa, and it isn't likely that any ever will. The way he was able to film rain, also used extensively in Rashomon, has to be seen to be believed. The distinguishing feature of Throne of Blood, however, is the frequent use of fog both as a narrative and stylistic device. Incredibly, the film was actually shot on the slopes of Mount Fuji, which provided Kurosawa with frequent and thick fog. It is used beautifully. The iconic scene where the forest comes to meet the walls of the castle is quite possibly the centerpiece of a film packed with incredible shots of nature.

Kurosawa liked using long telephoto lenses due to his assumption that the greater distance from the cameras would get better performances from his actors. He also liked the flattened backgrounds they provided. In Throne of Blood, he uses the narrow 4:3 aspect ratio characteristic of his early work, and this allows him to create a tight, claustrophobic effect. He uses the edges of the frame to conceal and reveal things that, in life, would be easily visible to the characters. It is a fantastic technique when done well, and Kurosawa did it better than anyone (including Leone, who made extensive use of it in films like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly). Observe the banquet scene. Having seen a ghost sitting across the room, Washizu draws his sword and stalks laterally across the frame, the camera gently panning to follow him. As his subordinates drop back in fright, the seat where the ghost was sitting comes into the frame. There is nobody there.

I have not seen every filmed version of Macbeth, so I can't call this the best of them. It is, however, miles ahead of the Polanski version. I can't imagine another actor playing Macbeth with the same ferocity, pathos, and self-loathing as Mifune. Kurosawa's critics may well have pointed to a film like Throne of Blood as a symptom of his fascination with Western source material, but nothing could be further beside the point: Throne of Blood is a great film to be enjoyed by everybody, and Akira Kurosawa was a film director without peer.

Creepout - Tribe Called Hardcore (2010)

The Japanese are famous for their unwavering devotion to their chosen obsessions. The otaku mindset informs the general Japanese approach to pastimes. Video games, manga, jazz music, karaoke, pachinko...you name it and droves of Japanese have dedicated their entire being to it.

But Cleveland-style hardcore, that's pretty specific, right? I mean, Tokyo is a big place (about 35 million people in the metropolitan area) and all, but how likely is it that there would be a subculture of people in a foreign country dedicated to something that only a handful of people here in America know the ins and outs of? Well, I'm only half Asian so I'm not going to do the math for you, but it's pretty fucking unlikely. But lucky for Tokyo hardcore kids and the rest of us, there does exist such a subculture, replete with construction gloves, Indians tattoos, Timberlands and Browns jerseys. I guess good taste transcends language barriers.

And Creepout is top of the heap in my opinion. People usually associate Japanese hardcore with more punk-oriented stuff like Gauze and Death Side. You know; fast, fuzzed-out, treble-y, with public restroom-quality recording. That stuff is cool and all, but if you know me you know what I like, and what I like is some big fat Clevo riffs. Politics aside (as they should be, up to a point), I think Crime Ridden Society is the hardest record of the 90's, and from the sounds of it, so does Creepout.

Tribe Called Hardcore is Creepout's best material so far (even though I also love the self titled and the split with Integrity), and it's basically a loving tribute to One Life Crew, Cleveland hardcore, and the Indians. The record opens with a sample of the Troggs' "Wild Thing", which confused me at first, until I remembered that it was the entrance music of the character Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughn from the Cleveland Indians-themed comedy movie Major League. Such an amazing reference. After that the LP kicks in and takes you for a wild-ass ride, so wild in fact that you'll think you're right in the thick of Ten Cent Beer Night, if Ten Cent Beer Night had had Those Who Fear Tomorrow playing over the PA.

One Life Crew and In Cold Blood are the obvious starting points for Tribe Called Hardcore, with certain parts (like "Martial Law") reminding me of some of Crowd Deterrent's more melodic moments (example: "Late Nights, Fist Fights"). They stick to the intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-breakdown that Integrity and OLC honed in the largely linear-structured 1990s. The breakdowns are fucking nasty. The pre-chorus and pre-breakdown parts develop a nice sense of space by letting chords ring, or cutting everything except one guitar, before hitting you with a fast 90s-style slam. Good examples are "Fuck Your Heaven" and "Bash Brothers", which both have breakdown lead-ins that remind me of "Real Domain". This is hands-down my favorite kind of hardcore, and it's so nice that these guys have taken such care to re-create the hallmarks of its feel.

My boy Yuichiro is on guitar sounding like the reincarnation of Blaze Tishko (Blaze isn't dead, fyi), serving up similarly tasty riffs with all the flavor but half the body fat. That picking style is so key to the Clevocore aesthetic, and I don't think I've ever heard it nailed so well by an outsider. Kunihyde's vocals are quite similar to Wake from the great Japanese oi! band Sledge Hammer (Samurai Spirit, only the truly ignorant need investigate further): raspy bordering on gurgly but still carrying a tune, sort of. With some shades of Mean Steve, too, of course. Great stuff.

One of my favorite things about the album is that they have a bunch of their homies (Senta, Ill-Tee, Lowbuster, Dr. Feelgood) come on to do guest vocal spots. This is something that is almost never done well on hardcore records, but they're placed well, and all these dudes sound so raw that it works. Especially on the last track ("59 Ways to Hell"), where there is a Wu-Tang style rotation of guys that sound like city-destroying monsters out of a Godzilla movie.

In summary, this is the best Cleveland-style hardcore record of the past 15 years. It's made with such a high degree of authenticity, it's no surprise these dudes are basically honorary Ohioans. Essential listening for fans of OLC and the Cleveland Indians.

Story time. I am one of a handful of Americans who have had the privilege of seeing Creepout in their natural habitat. On my way home from Korea in 2009, I visited Tokyo for the first time, and wouldn't you know it, there was a Creepout gig going down that coincided perfectly with my trip.

For the first three days in Japan I think I slept about 3 hours. I had decided that the best way to experience the stuck-in-a-videogame neon insanity of Shibuya and Shinjuku was to be in a sleep-deprived daze (I was right, by the way). Somehow I managed to find out how to get to the place where the show was, and let me assure you Americans reading this that that is easier said than done, especially considering that the entrance to the place was hidden between two buildings and looked like a stairway down to an abandoned cellar. Sadly, shows are pay-to-play in Japan, and at exorbitant rates to boot, so I think I wound up paying about 30 bucks just to get in. This better be the best damn hardcore show of all time, I thought to myself. Lucky me; it was totally unforgettable.

Every single person I met was incredibly welcoming and friendly, especially after I dropped the names of some mutual friends from Ohio (because I'm a baller), so it was a little bit of a shock when the show started and I saw how hard these kids go off. I should say that I've been to hardcore shows in several countries and in Asia it's unusual to see a lot of movement from the locals. I think it's extremely embarrassing when people talk about moshing, but I'm going to break my own rule here. These dudes were seriously beating the hell out of each other. But there were exactly zero fights, and everyone was smiling and having a great time while getting hit right in the grill.

I generally try to stay out of things when I'm in a new city, because every scene has varying levels of what is considered acceptable, and there can be a fine line between getting a "nice moves, bro" pat on the back and getting your ass beat by dudes with face tattoos. However, after seeing the Japanese kids wail on each other for about half an hour and fucking love every second of it, I figured I was ok. For their last song Creepout covered "Murdario Stomp/Pure Disgust" and that sealed it. I stepped out and immediately got pasted right in the face. But when the pit calls, a true pit warrior must answer, so I gave in to the dark side of the force and sang "Pure Disgust" until my throat was raw.

Anyway, I had gotten hit in the face, hard, at least three times during that last song. The trains stop running relatively early in Tokyo, so I had to run from the show to catch the last one back to my hostel. At some point while I was running, I started gushing blood from my nose, only I didn't realize it because I was seeing stars, sleep-deprived, and running as fast as I could to catch the train. I caught it, just barely, and sat down. After a minute or two I noticed all the business-suited salarymen on the train were staring at me. I was wondering what their problem was but then caught a glimpse of myself in the window across the aisle. I was quite a sight. I was wearing a white t-shirt and the front, as well as the lower half of my face, was covered in blood.

I cleaned myself up (luckily I had my backpack with an extra shirt inside), got back to my hostel about an hour later, and slept like a rock. Great night.

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Note: I'm uploading this because as far as I can tell there's no way to buy it right now (I bought it on CD from the band last year), but if you dig this come out to see these dudes play Summer of Hate, which is their one U.S. show a year.

Zatoichi (座頭市) (2003)

For the Japanese moviegoer, there may be no framework better established than that of Zatoichi, the blind swordsman. He is a gentle, soft-spoken, middle-aged man who wanders around the 18-century (Edo period) countryside, visiting gambling parlors and helping people in need. He carries a cane with a sword hidden inside, and when he is sufficiently provoked, the sword flashes out and a very surprised yakuza's blood sprays all over the place. Great stuff. A series spanning no less than 26 films was made, starring Shintaro Katsu as Zatoichi himself.

I took a general Japanese culture class in college, and we spent a few days watching a Katsu Zatoichi film, if that tells you anything about how ingrained in Japan's cinema culture the series is. I was transfixed. There is something innately satisfying about knowing that some tough-talking yakuza bully is about to get his intestines splattered all over the wall by a meek blind man.

It is a revered, slightly cheesy franchise that remained dormant for many years until this re-imagining by the great Takeshi Kitano (known in his home country as "Beat" Takeshi), a venerated Japanese actor and artist, a published poet who is perhaps best known for portraying hard-boiled yakuza tough-guy types. (Years ago he was in an accident that paralyzed one side of his face, and a running joke in Japan says that you can't tell which one, since his expression never changes) Western audiences may know him best as the "teacher" in 2000's Battle Royale (バトル・ロワイアル), which is awesome, by the way, and will probably get its own entry on here at some point. Kintaro is also a major Japanese directing talent, and he brings his usual uncompromisingly singular vision to Zatoichi.

The story stays true to the feel of the original Zatoichi series. It feels episodic in some ways: it's just one of the blind swordsman's many adventures, and that gives a subtle depth to the way Kitano portrays the character. Anyway it begins in the manner of many (most?) samurai flicks: a country village is under the thumb of two opposing Yakuza clans. Zatoichi totters up the road with his cane. He meets a widow (the lovely Michiyo Okosu in an equally lovely supporting role) who offers him a place to stay ("Don't get any ideas," she warns him). He wanders into town to gamble and comes across her nephew, a comically pathetic gambling addict who is none too lucky at dice. Guadalcanal Taka, a Japanese comedian, is hilarious as the hapless nephew. He plays it earnestly and gets a lot of big laughs. Through a series of misadventures they meet a pair of murderous geisha, and the plot turns toward revenge drama. There is also another dangerous newcomer in town, a ronin who has been hired by one of the clans as a yojimbo, or bodyguard/retainer. He may be as fast as Zatoichi, and we see him ruthlessly kill a lot of people. He's not an evil character like his employers, though, and we see the movie heading toward a climax we don't necessarily want to see played out.

This is classic stuff, but many directors tend to get heavyhanded and ham-fisted with such rich material. Kitano, on the other hand, has a deft touch. He knows what scenes need real emotion, he knows when the audience needs a little (or a lot) of blood, and he knows when to inject his bizarre sense of humor, which is quite frequently.

Kitano, like Kurosawa (if that comparison may be permitted), has an eye for the austere and balanced. This is a beautifully shot film. Typical action movies, in the US and abroad, have developed a sort of common visual language within the past twenty years that has become dogma. Fast camera movement, even faster cuts, camera shaking all over the damn place. These developments were striking the first few times we saw them, but to me it's grown tiresome. Kitano's Zatoichi has a refreshingly unique feel. There is frequent camera motion, to be sure, but just as often Kitano sets up still, contemplative shots that allow the viewer to ruminate a little. Imagine that. Overall the scenes are filmed methodically, with gentle pans and zooms that regard the subjects thoughtfully. Kitano often lets a shot linger for a few seconds longer than we've become accustomed to, and it is jarring but incredible at the same time. People and backgrounds are arranged precisely.

And yet this is an action movie. There is no lack of blood, in fact during the fight scenes it is spraying everywhere in fine jidaekgi (samurai flick) fashion. Kitano said in an interview regarding the film that he doesn't like sword fights where the swords clash together too much, as it isn't true to life. Watching these scenes I have to agree (no, I have never been in a sword fight, unfortunately); when two men are trying to kill each other they don't move so the audience can follow, they try to cut their opponent down as fast as they possibly can. The swords flash out and the action is over in a second. That is not to say that the choreography isn't fantastic, though.

Striking visuals contrast with the serene, earth-toned look of the film, and the whole thing feels very familiar and surprising at the same time. Kitano dyed his short hair bleach-blond for the role, I assume for no other reason than it visually distinguishes Zatoichi. It was a bold choice, but like many other bold choices that went into this film, Kitano pulls it off completely.

The most arresting, and delightful, thing about this movie is the undercurrent of percussive rhythm throughout. There are short musical interludes woven into the film; farmers swinging hoes into the ground in a complex syncopated beat, people in a field dancing in time with falling raindrops, workmen building a house. This is not a "musical" at all, at least not in the way we typically understand that term, but these little interludes are perhaps the true showcase of Kitano's talent as a director. He obviously has a deeply intuitive understanding of the subtle beats of combat scenes, but he applies that knowledge to every aspect of his film; everything from the way Zatoichi's footsteps crunch on the dirt path to the way the characters speak, the timing of the cuts, etc.

Speaking of music, this film has one of my favorite movie scores, by the composer Keiichi Suzuki. The film is silent when it has to be, but often it is alive with simple, percussive tunes. Xylophone, Japanese drums, electric organ. The modern, avant-garde character of the score clashes in a really pleasing way with the traditional, conventional look of Edo Period Japan.

It's not really giving anything away to say that movie ends with a big, elaborate dance number where all the characters come out on a stage and stomp away to pounding Japanese drums. This is a controversial aspect of this film, but I find myself wondering why. I thought it was an absolute delight. Does it make sense plot-wise? Maybe not, but plot is hardly the focal point of this movie anyway. I think it ties together the rhythmic sensibilities of the entire film, but more to the point it's memorable and fun. People bitch about strange things. The conventionality of the modern action movie is to blame, probably. In the West, it seems like all of our revered franchises (Bond, Batman, et al) are being re-imagined as gritty, dark, heavy-handed films with all the joy sucked out of them. What's wrong with simply having some fun at the movies? Anyway, it's yet another risk I'm glad Kitano took. It's a perfect finale from a fearless director.