Fireworks
1998
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| Kino Bez Granits | Release Date: March 20, 1998 |
Starring:
Hakury, Kayoko Kishimoto, Ken'ichi Yajima, Makoto Ashikawa, Ren Ôsugi, Susumu Terajima, Takeshi Kitano, Tarô Itsumi, Tetsu Watanabe, Yasuei Yakushiji
Summary:
Nishi leaves the police in the face of harrowing personal and professional difficulties. Spiraling into depression, he makes questionable decisions.
It’s a weird experience that Kitano is offering to movie audiences: We thrill to the violent, heroic exploits that leave many a pierced eyeball, many a severed limb, many a bullet-riddled corpse, but we find uplift in his celebration of community, music, dance, light, color, and companionship.
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Fireworks is a great new film that takes the traditions and makes them burn and explode, in violence and beauty, flame and flower. It's a film that lights up the night, opens your eyes. [20 Mar 1998, p.C]
Fireworks is bracing and original, an indefinable film made from familiar elements. "Hana-Bi," its title in Japanese, is a combination of the words for "flower" and "fire," and filmmaker Takeshi Kitano has, in the same way, adroitly fused genres, creating a film in which almost every moment pops out in unexpected ways. [20 Mar 1998, p.F4]
In its most simple form, Fireworks can be called a police versus yakuza (gangster) film. However, the emphasis in Fireworks isn't on blood and vengeance, though it has them in spades. Rather, Kitano challenges the audience to appreciate the film's structure and his careful manipulations of sound, space and imagery. [24 Apr 1998]
An apt title indeed, as the film's extreme violence always explodes from nowhere, with the resulting sparks carrying far and wide. Yet the narrative moves at a contemplative pace, allowing each scene to gently yield its secrets. [26 Jul 1998, p.8]
Fireworks is anything but the usual cop thriller. It's a piercing meditation on mortality, with a heartbroken tough guy at its center. [20 Mar 1998, p.C8]
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