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Just what I expected

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Well this is the third and final film in the 'Beat' Takeshi trilogy that I picked up on DVD, the first two being VIOLENT COP and BOILING POINT. SONATINE is the best of the trilogy, the most mature and the film with the best atmosphere. Despite the violent shenanigans of the film's plot, involving rival gangsters killing each other, for the most part this is a tranquil outing shattered only by bursts of extreme violence. It's also a film with a lot of humour, most of it utterly surreal (such as when two wrestlers become toys thanks to some sped-up camera effects). For most of the film, it's simply a bunch of guys having fun at a beach house, by pulling pranks on each other and playing games. Despite that the film never becomes boring because there's a simmering undercurrent of violence that you know has to erupt at some point.Once again the presence of 'Beat' Takeshi lifts the movie another level and the whole film hinges on his outstanding performance. This time he's a typical gangster, plagued with a hidden desire to kill himself. Takeshi has mastered the Japanese 'cold face' well yet it's also a pleasure to see him in some warmer moments as I get the feeling he isn't such a nasty character this time around – certainly not like the rapist he played in BOILING POINT. The supporting cast is very good indeed and the photography on the film is excellent. The violence, in the form of bloody shoot-outs, is nothing new, yet executed with a certain level of finesse that makes it stand out. Watch out for the shoot-outs where time (and the characters) literally stand still as fates are meted out. Add lots of bizarre stuff going on, Japanese humour, and a great twist ending, and you have what amounts to a nice, unusual little film.

Takeshi Kitano writes and directs his gangster films like Ernst Hemingway wrote his prose. "Sonatine" is a lean, mean movie about yakuza gunsels roughing it in Okinawa on a mission to settle a dispute. There is a lot of violence, but it's not the kind that makes you want to go out and shoot somebody. The difference between an action shoot'em up and Kitano's "Sonatine" is that everything is matter of fact, ordinary in a way that makes everything seem doubly realistic. These gangsters don't pose and shoot; they shoot. If Sergio Leone perpetuated the 'looks can kill' stare, then Kitano has created the 'look that wonders.' These tight-lipped tough guys say more with their glassy-eyed stares than they would if they were exchanging papers of meaningless dialogue. You have to use your imagination with "Sonatine" and Kitano forces you with gunfights where you see muzzle flashes in windows or on faces like a artsy light show. Some people will complain that the 94-minute melodrama is humdrum, but it is far from boring. If there were ever a movie about violence that shows how meaningless a life of violence is, "Sonatine" qualifies for that honor. Kitano delivers another hypnotic performance.

I recently purchased Sonatine boxed with "The Bind Swordsman: Zatoichi" and just got around to viewing both. I've become a big fan of the Japanese cinema but these are the first Kitano films I've had the pleasure of viewing. I have to admit I'm hooked.I can't remember the last time I recoiled in shock from a bloody shoot-out and laughed until I cried 15 minutes later. The scene on the beach with the guys in the sumo ring bouncing around like the paper cutouts in the earlier scene is hysterical.I think I'll give it a couple days and watch it again because there are lots of details I missed the first time around. Definitely a thought-provoking movie.

Others have commented that the main character in this brilliant film is a burnt-out husk of a man. Although this is certainly true from one viewpoint, I would like to emphasize an alternative perspective.Murakawa, the gangster, is already one of the "grateful dead." He has been through so much in his life that he is indeed "burnt out," but there is also a good sense to this term. Life's vicissitudes have grounded him in a zen-like serenity beyond concerns about life and death. Life can only draw him out enough to express mild amusement. During a shootout, he stands calmly blazing away, oblivious to the bullets flying around him. It is this divine detachment that makes true "play" possible, as we witness in the playful beach scenes. His personality, or more accurately, his character, is standing on something beyond the phenomenal. He is able to go through the motions of being a gangster, but it is as if he is watching the violent play in which he is involved with a godlike detached amusement. This is much like the character Takeshi Kitano plays in "Zatoichi, the Blind Swordsman." The movie is a fusion of gangland action and Buddhist sensibility--a very Oriental gangster flick.The film is a masterpiece--from the serenity of the beautiful Okinawan landscape to the perfection of the musical score. It reminds me of Yeats' famous tombstone: "Cast a cold eye on life, on death . . . ," but I would revise it to say "Cast an amused eye on life, on death . . . ." The fearsome Hindu death goddess Kali, with her girdle of skulls, has one palm raised in a gesture of "fear not." So it is with the calm at the center of this violent film.