Cheap Fireworks (DVD) (Takeshi Kitano, Kayoko Kishimoto) (Takeshi Kitano) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Fireworks

Kitano (always credited as "Beat" Takeshi as an actor) wrote the screenplay and stars as Nishi, a tough cop struggling to cope with the recent death of his daughter while caring for his leukemia stricken wife. One day, at his partner's urging, he takes a break from a stakeout to visit his wife at the nearby hospital where she's being treated. In his absence, things go terribly wrong; his partner is left crippled and another officer is killed.

Kitano plays Nishi like a man holding the weight of the world on his shoulders, struggling to maintain composure in the wake of a tragedy that has shattered the lives of people close to him. The quiet dignity with which he carries himself is compromised only by an occasional facial tic, which we see while he listens to his ex-partner reveal that his family abandoned him after the shooting and later when the dead officer's widow pours her heart to him about the emotional and financial difficulties of raising her daughter alone.

Hoping to make his wife's final days more pleasant, he borrows money from a local Yakuza, but when he falls behind on the interest payments, he becomes the subject of harrassment and threats. Determined to correct everything that's gone wrong, Nishi decides to rob a bank to pay back the Yakuza and take care of his wife, ex-partner and the widow of the slain officer. The situation escalates out of control, resulting in an understated, but powerful climax.

This film won the Golden Lion award for Best Picture at the 1997 Venice International Film Festival and propelled Kitano to the forefront of Japanese cinema. It's considered by many critics and fans to be Kitano's best movie, though I consider his 2002 release "Dolls" (unavailable on U.S. DVD) to be a strong contender for that distinction.

Now, the problem with this DVD. The transfer itself is fine. The film is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 with clear, well translated subtitles and some nice features. However, the disc is inexplicably missing aproximately 4 minutes of footage. Why a company like New Yorker Films, which specializes in art house releases, would release a truncated version of such a seminal work, is anyone's guess, but American companies have not been kind to Kitano's works. Any DVD released stateside of his films has a much better version overseas. I strongly urge anyone interested in this film to look for the uncut Korean special edition DVD (under the original title "Hana-Bi"), which is NTSC and region free (despite being labled Region 3 on the box)), so it will play on any North American DVD player. It has excellent subtitles and even costs a few dollars less than the incomplete American version.

The Perfect Kitano Film for Beginners!
In case you have never seen a Takeshi Kitano film, this would be the perfect one to start with. Although it's not his first film (that honor belongs to the equally excellent VIOLENT COP), it contains all of the trademarks that would make him an international star: The quiet scenes which suddenly erupt into shocking violence, his apparent lack of emotions, an abundance of drama, etc. Kitano (who always acts under the name "Beat" Takeshi), stars as the seemingly mild-mannered Detective Nishi. However, the anger inside of him is brought out when his partner on the force is paralyzed from the waste down and is confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. As if that's not enough, he then finds out his wife is dying of a disease. His true self comes into light when members of the yakuza track him down, demanding the money he borrowed from them for his wife's operation.

This has some of the most surprising scenes of violence I have ever witnessed in a film. In what other film is the main star sitting calmly at a table one minute, and shoving chopsticks in a man's eye the next?

Haiku + .45 Semi Automatic = Hana Bi
Simply stated, the most important film of the 1990's; probably of the last twenty years. The film is in its entirety a meditative experience, combining a slow and calm build-up of chi or prana-force-energy with explosive violence. Beat Takeshi's violence, however, is not gratuitous, but righteous anger in action. As a schizoid world falls down around him, Takeshi takes the role of Samurai -- indeed, "such a man was already Samurai." This is a film of mystery, of soft color and light ocean breezes from the South China Sea, and of poetry. If the warrior immortalized in Book of Five Rings or Gitopanishad has an equivalent in modern times, surely it would be in this strange character, this Japanese-style Colonel Kurtz in Hana-Bi. But then, you must watch this film for yourself. You will not be the same person when it is over.