A very good movie

Back in the 90's, I used to be a huge fan of Takeshi Kitano and I ended up watching 9 of his movies. I have to admit that, nowadays, I don't follow much his work anymore but it doesn't seem I'm missing much. Anyway, it must be, with ‘Hana-Bi’, the most famous movie directed by Takeshi Kitano. At the time, he was still an upcoming director and it is with this movie that he finally reached international acclaim. Basically, it is some a Kitano feature with many of his trademark such as the violent yakuzas mixed with some symbolism and poetry. In fact, at the time, this movie was a major box-office failure in Japan because Kitano was then a very famous TV comedian and the Japanese audience had a really hard time to take him seriously as a dramatic director. Personally, I always had a weak spot for his idiosyncratic style and even though this movie was not one of my favorites, it was still very good. To conclude, this feature was the breakthrough of one of the best Japanese directors that ever lived and I think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Asian movies.

8/10