Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9375 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-02-26
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 99 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
The ideal starter movie for those who wish to familiarise themselves with the work of the paradoxical Japanese auteur, Hana-Bi (the word means "fireworks" in Japanese) is an echt example of "Beat"'s Takeshi Kitano's distinctive brand of existential crime thrillers. Like Violent Cop, Boiling Point, Sonatine or his LA-set Brother, Hana-Bi juxtaposes shocking bursts of violence with reflective moments of lyricism, setting up a slap-caress-slap rhythm that's as disquieting as it is addictive.

Kitano himself plays weary Tokyo cop Nishi, an impassive-faced detective in hock to yakuza mobsters, toughened by a career in violence (at one point he takes out an attacker's eye with a chopstick, an assault so swiftly edited one barely has time to register it). Nishi's Achilles-heel is his love for his wife Miyuki (Kayoko Kishimoto) who is dying of cancer, following their late daughter to the grave. When Nishi leaves a stakeout to attend to her in hospital, a colleague, Horibe (Ren Osugi) is paralysed in the ensuing shootout. Nishi, guilt-stricken, goes on the run with Miyuki, taking her to beauty spots to enjoy simple pleasures like kite-flying and picnics before she dies, although the yakuza are never far behind. Meanwhile, Horibe takes up painting, and discovers in the process a calming new vocation (the na&239;ve, disturbing and strangely beautiful images are by Kitano himself, painted after he had his own near-fatal experience in a motorcycle accident).

The cumulative effect is a profoundly moving and enigmatic movie, one that discreetly withholds many of the narrative crutches--backstory, motivation--you would expect from a conventional Hollywood movie with the same story. It's not surprising Kitano is so drawn to characters teeming with contradictions, given that his own career seems so bi-polar on paper: he started out a television presenting clown, and his move into glowering policiers represented an image volte-face as surprising to Japanese audiences as it would be if Dale Winton had started making Scorsese-style gangster movies. His comic sensibility shines through in spots in Hana-Bi, even more so in the broad comedy Kikujiro. Considered by many critics Kitano's best film, Hana-Bi^'s power is augmented by Hideo Yamamoto's lapidary cinematography, and Jo Hisaishi's lush, string-laden score. --Leslie Felperin

Special Features
1.85 Wide Screen
Japanese
Region 2
Dolby Digital 2.0 Japanese
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Documentary
Trailer
English

Synopsis
Takeshi Kitano, aka Beat Takeshi, writes, directs and stars in this beautiful lament of a film. Kitano stars as a retired cop who turns to crime to raise the money to take his dying wife on one last trip. Low on dialogue, HANA-BI is a meditation on guilt, loyalty, and death.

Customer Reviews

kitano fireworks.
A great introduction to the master's work, Hana-Bi is the most accessable of Kitano's films. It has love, loyalty, revenge, humour and the coolest ever bank robbery you'll ever see on film. Kitano is Nishi, a policeman with a sick wife, fallen colleagues and an unfortunate involvement with the yakuza. Nishi is so laid back to the turmoil around him, he at first seems detatched from the action. It appears strange to our Westernized film cultured brains to see a film where the main protagonist hardly utters a syllable in the first half of the movie, but here it happens, and it works very well. I won't give the story away,suffice to say it's one of my favourite films.

Beat Takeshi delivers a film like no other.
I have been a fan of oriental films now for many years, from Manga, to Made In Hong Kong, to Japan and Korea. In these years I have seen many a film which I considered to be amongst the very best of all time. Then I saw Hana-Bi.

Winner at the Venice Film Festival in 1997, Hana-Bi, 'Fireworks', is a story of emotions and feelings done the only way Kitano 'Beat' Takeshi knows how.

He never loses his control on the audience managing to keep your attention right up to the closing finale. It's full of romance, guilt, sadness, loneliness and passion with a haunting and unique score by Joe Hisaishi, a brilliant composer who can direct an orchestra just as aptly as Kitano can a film crew.

This film will leave you breathless and reaching for the replay button the moment the credits start to roll.

My wife watched the whole film with me, a rarity I can tell you, and she usually does not like these films, but even she had to admit how good it was. It is a fantastic story well acted and superbly directed. I masterpiece of Japanese cinema any fan, or non fan, should place pride of thier collection.

One of the best cult Kitano films Ever!
I have seen nearly all of Takeshi Kitano's films but Hana bi has to be one of the best I have seen so far. It is a brilliant mix of tranquillity and violence and has a excellent soundtrack composed by Joe Hisaishi who also comosed alot of the music for other Kitano films. This film was a winner of the venice flim festival in 1997 which it definitely deserved. The film does have a bit of what I call (Kitano Humour) But it is still very serious and emotional.
In conclsion it is one of the best Kitano films I have seen,any Cult movie fan should consider buying it. This movie is Takeshi Kitano at his BEST.