Sonatine

Released by: Panorama

Released on: 12/9/2002
Director: Takashi Kitano
Cast: Takashi Kitano, Aya Kokumai, Tetsu Watanabe, Masanobu Katsumura, Susumu Terajima, Ren Osugi
Year: 1993
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The Movie:

A speared fish struggling fruitlessly to survive is the way that Sonatine begins, and it's difficult to think of a more appropriate metaphor to kick off Takashi Kitano's Yakuza action/drama/character study. In the context of the story, it's quite perfect.

Kitano (of Battle Royale) plays Aniki Murakawa, an aging Tokyo Yakuza who is given the task of taking his crew across to Okinawa where they are supposed to help a fellow gangster take care of a little problem over there with a rival gang. A few days into the job and he finds that his crew is more interested in getting high than getting the job done.

Despite his inherent suspicion of this job, but he goes along with it and soon enough, a few of his co-workers are dead. He smells a setup, and holes himself up in a house on the beach, waiting for it to all hit the fan. Essentially, he waits to die but it doesn't take long for him to come to the conclusion that it isn't really worth waiting for death and instead, does his part to make it happen because he knows he's pretty much finished with anyway. All of this occurs despite the fact that he's started to make friends with his men and developed a relationship with one of the women on the island.

Feel good movie of the year this is not. The central theme of being predestined to die regardless of how hard he fights (and in this case, for at least part of the film he just plain gives up) is a depressing one. At the same time it's something that will sooner or later happen to all of us regardless of whether it's by natural causes or not. He also learns, through the course of the film, to accept his fate - something atypical (a word that can be used to describe the majority of his work) of the Yakuza films fans are accustomed to seeing, where the central character never goes down without a serious fight.

Moments of stark and shocking violence counterbalance some more sensitive scenes in which the elder gangster develops a relationship with the local woman after saving her from being raped by her own husband. Contrast like this keeps the story interesting and thought provoking while Kitano's use of basic and static camera movements lend way to a serious case of substance over style but at the same time manages to maintain an interesting look throughout. I suppose his directorial vision in this and many of his other films is simply a case of less is more.

Video/Audio/Extras:


The non-anamorphic 1.85.1 widescreen transfer has its share of problems. While it's nice to see it widescreen, the image is quite muddy and soft looking with some minor print damage (most of which looks to be around the reel changes?). The colors are reasonably well reproduced but there's also some edge enhancement throughout pretty much the entire movie. It's a shame, really - the movie deserves better than this. It's watchable, but it would have been nice if Panorama had put more effort into the video presentation.

Sonatine comes with a decent Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 that has removable English or Chinese subtitles. Unfortunately, the English subtitles have a lot of grammatical and spelling errors in them, which is a bit distracting. The quality of the audio itself isn't bad though, some nice action from the rear speakers fills up the room nicely during some of the more active moments in the film. The dialogue is reasonably clean with only a minute bit of hiss in a couple of spots that you won't notice unless you're looking for it.

Aside from an audio commentary from the director that isn't subtitled in either Chinese or English (thus rendering it rather useless unless you're fluent in Japanese - I'd assume most citizens of Hong Kong are not), there is a small collectible booklet and a Takashi Kintano biography and filmography.

The Final Word:

An excellent film receives a lukewarm presentation from Panorama that sadly hasn't been much improved upon over the years. Kitano deserves better, this film being a great example of why.