Very good. Liked it. You could criticize the film for being ever-so-slightly repetitive, if wanted to. Or for dipping into the melo-camp jar a tiny bit too deeply and obviously. Or you could not, and just enjoy it. It’s good. It has so many great things about it both in style and story, that it more than overcomes any flaws one wishes to c/a (complain about).

If Kitano’s flagrant sentimentality is a sin, then let us sin together.

Note: part about watching director evolve his techniques over time. That is – should you watch a director’s films in any order? Random order? Chronological order?

If you were setting out to watch a certain director’s oeuvre, it seems intuitive one would want to watch the films in chronological order. This might not be best, however. Suppose a director develops certain techniques over time – and then perfects them toward the latter part of his career. Is there not a chance that a pre-existing awareness of these techniques might diminish the pleasure and impact of seeing them in their pefected final form—like reading a rough draft of a work before the final version.

Kitano could be a primary example of this issue.

Kitano’s Venice prize-winner mixes tenderness, violence and droll humour. A recently retired cop drifts towards a one-off crime, to help out a suicidal colleague crippled in a disastrous stake-out, and to take his terminally ill wife on one last trip around Japan. It’s exceptionally assured, imaginative and idiosyncratic: the violence is sudden, brutal and almost all in the editing; the working of Kitano’s own delightful paintings into the story is astonishingly resonant; the mise-en-scene as sharp and inventive in Sonatine; and it’s all held together by Beat Takeshi’s unprecedentedly taciturn, impassive, but expressive performance, which is crucial to the film’s emotional punch. Fans of Melville, Keaton, Hawks and Peckinpah should be especially impressed, but anyone with a modicum of patience, an open mind and a little love in their heart will probably recognize it as a masterpiece. GA