Description:

Hana-bi - The seventh and most somber work from the Japanese director Takeshi Kitano.

Kitano plays a cop named Nishi, a determinedly impassive man whose face occasionally ripples with an involuntary tic, hinting at the explosive but contained forces within. Nishi's wife is dying of leukemia, a disease that's already killed their child, and he cares for her with a shattering tenderness.

While on a stakeout, Nishi takes a break to check in on her, and while he's gone his partner is shot, leaving him crippled, and another officer is killed. With death hovering at home and a score to settle outside, Kitano's hero sets off on an isolated course to seek justice.

No one but Kitano would have thought to combine cold spasms of violence with such a tender portrait of marriage, or to tinge the whole tale with black comedy; if you can take that mixture, and if you can follow the sly complications of Kitano's chronology, you will not be disappointed.

Stars: Kitano 'Beat' Takeshi, Kayoko Kishimoto, Ren Oosugi

1997 - JAPANESE with OPTIONAL ENGLISH SUBTITLES - COLOR - 16:9 ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN - 99 MINUTES



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