Sonatine
Takeshi Kitano
Murakawa and his men are sent to Okinawa to lend support to another Yakuza clan at war with yet another. But it is a trap and several of Murakawa's men are killed. Murakawa takes up arms to avenge his honour.
With : Takeshi Kitano, Aya Kokumai, Tetsu Watanabe, Masanobu Katsumura, Susumu Terajima
Screenplay : Takeshi Kitano
Image : Katsumi Yanagishima
Sound : Senji Horiuchi
Editing : Takeshi Kitano
Decors : Hirohide Shibata
Music : Joe Hisaishi
Screenplay : Takeshi Kitano
Image : Katsumi Yanagishima
Sound : Senji Horiuchi
Editing : Takeshi Kitano
Decors : Hirohide Shibata
Music : Joe Hisaishi
Production : Shochiku Films, Bandai Visual Co.
Distribution: Tamasa Distribution
Distribution: Tamasa Distribution
Sonatine is inhabited by wandering ghosts who, like the Melville's heroes, are preparing for death in silence. Murakawa, played by Kitano, is surprising with his world-weary smile and his way of just being there, like Jef Costello whose inexpressiveness is driven to the extreme. Rooted as much in Noh theatre as the burlesque of Buster Keaton, Sonatine is, in Kitano's opinion, "a comedy with a nightmare" where the minimalism of the direction and the lethargy of the characters make up a very strange gangster film. Just as Jean-Pierre Melville describes the French mobworld as he knew it, Takeshi Kitano paints a personal picture of the world of the Yakuza he knew from his childhood in Tokyo.