Actor and auteur Takeshi Kitano (who in Japan also uses the stage name "Beat" Takeshi, primarily for his work as a television comedian) wrote, directed, edited, and starred in this unusual crime drama. Nishi (Takeshi Kitano) is a policeman whose emotions seem to run only on two extreme paths -- either quiet contentment or brutal rage. Nishi's life is falling apart around him; his daughter was murdered, his wife, Miyuki (Kayoko Kishimoto), is dying of leukemia, his partner, Horibe (Ren Osugi), was ambushed by thugs after Nishi left him to visit his wife in the hospital and will now spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, and another cop was killed coming to Horibe's rescue. Nishi desperately wants to quit his job so he can spend more time with his dying wife, so he borrows a large sum of money from the yakuza (the Japanese mafia) and takes up a career as a painter while he cares for Miyuki. Not wanting to stay in debt to the gangsters, Nishi engineers a daring bank robbery (using his police uniform and an old auto disguised to look like a squad car) and uses the loot to pay off the yakuza and take his wife on a final vacation. However, the loan sharks are not eager to have Nishi off the hook, and they begin complaining that he still owes them interest on their loan. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Hana-Bi, which won the coveted Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, established Takeshi Kitano, better known in Japan as a television comedian, as one of that country's most highly regarded directors. Directed with remarkable assurance, this sensitive tale fuses wistful melancholy, jarring violence, and deadpan wit; its first 30 minutes consist of a brilliantly arranged collection of flash-forwards and flashbacks, which ultimately cohere into a tale about a cop's slide into criminality in a desperate attempt to help his dying wife and make amends to his crippled former partner. Though Kitano's comic timing is perfect in numerous comic vignettes, a wintry chill of death pervades this film: Nishi's wife has terminal cancer, their child recently died, his police buddies were killed by a crazed gunman, and Nishi has had a price put on his head by a yazuka loan shark seeking payment. As if Kitano were answering the two-fisted bloodletting of Quentin Tarantino, the film focuses more on the numbed quiet of men so habituated to violence that they cannot image an alternative. As Nishi, Kitano delivers a powerful, though almost wordless, performance, while Kayoko Kishimoto is excellent as Nishi's wife, Miyuki. Rarely has married love been so finely portrayed as in this film. A mature work in both style and content, Hana-Bi is widely considered one of the masterpieces of 1990s world cinema. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
