Movie review: HANA-BI (1997)

Watched it since I really loved Violent Cop and a colleague strongly recommended it to me. In fact, the aforementioned Violent Cop is an important comparison point, since Kitano plays the exact same character in both: the hard-boiled cop of (very) few words and a damaged family, going off track.

I recognize the raw talent in the acting, cinematography and (breathtaking) soundtrack, but I think this may be a just a little bit too contemplative/artsy for me, at least enough to feel a hint of slowness in some scenes.

Mind you, this kind of film must toe the fine line between atmosphere and overdoing it by design, so it's almost a praise to say that only a handful of scenes might benefit from a slightly shorter length (matter of seconds) or a few more words. After a bit more thinking, the issue might lie more in tempo than outright individual shots: these "contemplative" scenes shouldn't be so often back-to-back.

Another related problem is that Kitano may have pushed his ice cold character thing too far this time. In that other cop movie I keep mentioning, he's also extremely stoic but doesn't have sunglasses often robbing his silent acting of the eyes' expressiveness and speaks more than a dozen words in 1h40 of runtime…

In the end, I can say it achieved its intended poignancy with me and certainly deserves the critical acclaim, but I'm still more of a Violent Cop guy. I also have a hard time deciding on the rating. I'd say between 8 and 9, but 9 simply feels a bit too high considering the amount of criticism I managed to form.