Boiling Point

Takeshi Kitano’s 1990 movie is one of his most brutal but also one of his funniest, like Violent Cop this contrast of violence with humour works well. The story is a simple one like most Takeshi movies, but the detail is in the characters and atmosphere. Takeshi really has a talent for making you feel like you know the characters.

The main character, Masaki, a quiet mild mannered person, gets into a fight with a Yakuza member while working at a Gas Station. He asks for help from Iguchi, a Baseball coach of a local team he plays for, who is a former Yakuza himself. But when that plan goes wrong and he is seriously injured, Masaki travels to Okinawa with his friend to buy a gun for Iguchi.

While in Okinawa they meet up with Uhera (Takeshi) and his two friends, they begin to travel with them in search of some guns as Uhera has some revenge on his mind as well. If you thought Takeshi was at his most insane after seeing Violent Cop, then you need to see this. He is far more intimidating as Uhera than his Detective Azuma character. He is a man who seemingly cares about very little, with some schizophrenic tendencies and as usual, explosive bouts of violence. If you have never seen one of his movies before you’d be forgiven for reading this review and thinking that he uses violence in a very exploitive way, but Takeshi said it best when he said, “Violence is like comedy, it affects us suddenly, without warning.”

One thing I noticed after viewing this film was that the movie has no score or music soundtrack. In fact, only one scene features music but that is only because it is set in a karaoke bar. This in my opinion makes the atmosphere far more intense because it keeps everything down to the bare essentials, far more realistic and cold.

As for the comedy, at times it can be laugh out loud funny, and other times, in a classic Takeshi manner, you’re not sure if you should be laughing or shocked at what is about to come. During the first forty minutes of the film there is a reoccurring theme of people after car accidents sitting by the side of the road injured, I myself am not sure what this is meant to symbolise, but it’s great none the less, and at times pretty funny.

Baseball plays a big role during the first half of the movie (and later during a game on the beach). Takeshi is a big baseball fan himself, and you can tell in the way that the scenes are directed that he loved shooting these scenes. There is almost always a Baseball reference in his movies even down to the smallest piece of dialogue like in Sonatine, when two guys are talking and one becomes bored of the other mans “Do you know…?” questions and says “Don’t you have any decent friends? No-one famous in baseball or something?”

Boiling Point is a masterpiece, and is a one to see for all of you who like something a little different, people who like character driven “stories”, and not Hollywood CGI driven pieces of shit.

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