Boiling Point
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DVD details
Actor: Dankan, Eri Fuse, Kengakusha Akiyama, Makoto Ashikawa, Rakkyo IdeDVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Japanese (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Color, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 96 minutes
Published: 1999-12-01
DVD Release Date: 1999-12-07
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Fox Lorber
DVD Reviews of Boiling Point
DVD Review: There is not one for you.
Summary: 4 Stars
Seemingly lost in his own world, Masaki lives his life in a constant haze. Completely unmotivated, Masaki's friends and colleagues almost have to force him to participate in local sandlot baseball games and his work as a gas station attendant. After one game in which Masaki struck out without even trying to swing the bat, Masaki gets into a scuffle with a yakuza who is a member of the Otomo group. Stating that his man's arm has been broken, the branch boss of the Otomo group pays the owner of the gas station a visit and informs him that he had better make amends with the "injured" yakuza. Learning about the scuffle, the coach of Masaki's baseball team Ishida, a former high ranking yakuza, promises to straighten things out for the younger man. Ishida does in fact beat up the branch boss, but the man's underlings soon beat him up. In order to make amends with his coach, Masaki and a friend make their way down to Okinawa to purchase a pistol. However, they find a bit more than what they bargained for.
After being told to return some money the next day and to cut off his finger, Uehara, Beat Takeshi, takes his frustrations out on a car by repeatedly kicking the door of a car. It is at this time that Masaki and his friend come upon the scene. Uehara, his right hand man Tamagi, and his girlfriend Fumiyo take the two men from Tokyo to a bar where amongst the smoke and karaoke Uehara and Tamagi beat up two men brutally. This is just the beginning of a couple of days of violence.
Considered one of Kitano's lesser films by many, Boiling Point is a slow paced movie that has some explosive bursts of violence. Also this film displays the image of the sea that is a trademark of Kitano's films and like Sonatine, Hana-bi, and much later parodied in Takeshis', the sea is the locale of both play and violence. Also, unlike many of Kitano's other violent characters, Uehara seems to lack the tender core that made characters such as Hana-bi's Nishi likeable in his stony way. However, in this film, Uehara is the type who forces his friend to have sex with his lover and thereafter beats his lover Fumiyo on the head because she should not have slept with Tamagi even though she was told to. Add to this a couple of instances of rape, one male and one female; the total package is a completely unwholesome character. Looking back, Boiling Point is indeed a flawed film, but one can see the elements that would one day make Kitano an internationally acclaimed director. Recommended for fans of Japanese film, highly recommended for fans of Kitano Takeshi.
Description of Boiling Point
Japanese TV star, comedian, and sophomore director "Beat" Takeshi Kitano added screenwriter to his r?©sum?© for his second feature, the offbeat story of meek, passive gas station attendant and benchwarming minor-league baseball player Masaki (Masahiko Ono), who finally rebels against the insults and abuse. His timing couldn't be worse, however, for he lashes out against an ill-mannered yakuza soldier. When the local crime boss embarks on a campaign of harassment and beatings aimed at Masaki's coworkers and baseball teammates, Masaki flies off to Yokohama to buy a gun, and falls in with a charismatic but brutal gangster (Takeshi) who has his own score to settle with the yakuza. Perhaps Kitano's most oblique film, "Boiling Point" is made up primarily of digressions, notably the rambling middle, where Takeshi's disgraced mobster takes Masaki and his pal on a tour of local nightlife, a sequence of pokerfaced gags and dry, ironic humor twisted around Takeshi's brutal, misogynist antics. The film lacks the drive and compelling narrative of Takeshi's other gangster pictures (notably his masterpiece, "Sonatine", which revives many of the cinematic ideas first explored in this film), but rises to life in some astounding sequences: a flashforward delivered as an adrenaline rush of images, the chilling yet comic eruption of a bouquet of flowers, and an underplayed apocalyptic climax, followed by a tender coda. "--Sean Axmaker"Japanese TV star, comedian, and sophomore director "Beat" Takeshi Kitano added screenwriter to his résumé for his second feature, the offbeat story of meek, passive gas station attendant and benchwarming minor-league baseball player Masaki (Masahiko Ono), who finally rebels against the insults and abuse. His timing couldn't be worse, however, for he lashes out against an ill-mannered yakuza soldier. When the local crime boss embarks on a campaign of harassment and beatings aimed at Masaki's coworkers and baseball teammates, Masaki flies off to Yokohama to buy a gun, and falls in with a charismatic but brutal gangster (Takeshi) who has his own score to settle with the yakuza. Perhaps Kitano's most oblique film, Boiling Point is made up primarily of digressions, notably the rambling middle, where Takeshi's disgraced mobster takes Masaki and his pal on a tour of local nightlife, a sequence of pokerfaced gags and dry, ironic humor twisted around Takeshi's brutal, misogynist antics. The film lacks the drive and compelling narrative of Takeshi's other gangster pictures (notably his masterpiece, Sonatine, which revives many of the cinematic ideas first explored in this film), but rises to life in some astounding sequences: a flashforward delivered as an adrenaline rush of images, the chilling yet comic eruption of a bouquet of flowers, and an underplayed apocalyptic climax, followed by a tender coda. --Sean Axmaker
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