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Boiling Point

1990, Movie, NR, 98 mins

Boiling Point: Review

BOILING POINT | 3-4 X JUGATSU | SAN TAI YON X JUGATSU
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If you see only one "Beat" Takeshi Kitano movie in your lifetime, perhaps this shouldn't be it. Originally released in Japan in 1990, this second entry in the Japanese director's quartet of Yakuza films lacks the rich characterizations and deep melancholy that make the later films so distinctive. That said, it is filled with the stand-up-comic-turned-auteur's lunatic brand of humor and the inventive use of wild violence that first brought him widespread acclaim. Masaki (Masahiko Ono) is a slow-witted gas station attendant and amateur ballplayer who makes the big mistake of striking back after he's slapped by a local mobster for giving his Mercedes a less than perfect wash. When the yakuza start to lean on the gas station, Mr. Iguchi (Takahito Iguchi) -- the coach of Masaki's team and himself a former yakuza -- confronts the gangsters, but he's brutally beaten for his trouble. Deciding to take matters into their own hands, Masaki and his teammate Kazuo (Minoru Iizuka) travel to Okinawa to buy a gun, and hook-up with a rogue yakuza named Uehara (Takeshi) who's in deep trouble: He's embezzled a lot of cash and the boss wants it it all back, plus interest -- one of Uehara's fingers. What begins as an even-paced, fairly straightforward story takes a turn for the truly bizarre the minute Takeshi appears on the screen; the film becomes a discomfiting mixture of extreme violence, dead-pan humor and blithe misogyny. Kitano's trademark use of jump-cuts and sudden silence are already in place, but what's missing is the oddball humanism of SONATINE and Kitano's 1997 masterpiece FIREWORKS (HANA-BI). Not an unqualified success by any means, it is an intriguing foreshadowing of some very good things to come. leave a comment --Ken Fox
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