Memorable, crazy movie

Great Film overall

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

As always, Takeshi Kitano focuses on characters excluded from Japan's 'economic miracle'. His protagonist Masaki (Ono Masahiko), is a hopeless loser: no education (he is slow on the uptake); no prospects (he works part-time as a petrol-station attendant); no baseball skills (which implies a deficient sense of his place in Japanese society). He imagines crashing a stolen oil-tanker into the yakuza headquarters. In his mind, this suicide gives meaning and shape to a life-time of underachievement. Kitano's own extended cameo as Uehara, the Okinawan gangster who commands self-sacrificing loyalty from his friend Tamagi despite expecting his to sever a finger, submit to sodomy and so on, is a creation in the league of French writer Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi: a lord of misrule, the embodiment of the disorderly underside of orderly Japan. As a controlled, music-free account of violence, crime and immorality on the verge of erupting through society's placid surfaces, the film is remarkable enough. What makes it phenomenal is Kitano's completely instinctive reinvention of the grammar and syntax of narrative filmmaking, unique in the popular cinema of the 1990s. Although it gave Kitano his second director credit, Boiling Point has all the hallmarks of a film by a debut director determined to get every idea he has ever had about film, life, death and baseball up there on the screen. His subsequent films, such as Sonatine (1993) and Hana-Bi (1997), are more mature but cannot recapture the raw aesthetic excitement of these beginnings.

Seemingly lost in his own world, Kazuo, Dankan, lives his life in a constant haze. Completely unmotivated, Kazuo'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 Kazuo struck out without even trying to swing the bat, Kazuo 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 Kazuo'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, Kazuo 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 Kazuo 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 likable 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.

this is my 3rd Kitano movie (after Violent Cop & Brother), i enjoyed this as much as the other, Kitano's movies move at such a pace which you think would be boring but there's something about his movies which draws you in.This film was pretty much hilarious and brutal at the same time, i mean you wouldn't usually laugh at woman getting used for sex and getting slapped about harshly at every turn, but the way Takeshi's character does it makes it hilarious, especially the scene involing the ice lollies outside the store...bizarre humour.This movie had a strange story, it never goes into enough depth to make you get real sucked into the characters, so the final scene, whilst spectacular kind of leaves you thinking 'they all died?'.Other than a pretty shallow story i found this very entertaining...Takeshi's movies rule! Check this.

3-4x Jugatsu/Boiling Point(1990) focuses on the theme of rebellion. The second consecutive film by Takeshi Kitano with an outsider who goes against the system. Masaki is a reactionary character who is content to be a nobody. He is an outsider who tends to do things just for the heck of it. Masaki and Uehara have a lot in common because both fight and lose to the system. Uehara is a charismatic anti hero who is in the film for a small period of time. I only wished that Uehara had more screen time in Boiling Point(1990). Uehara is the meanest and sadistic person in a Takeshi Kitano directed picture. "Beat" Takeshi plays Uehara with flamboyant sadism and unpredictable viciousness. "Beat" Takeshi in Boiling Point(1990) follows in the footsteps of fellow tough guys, Lee Marvin, Robert Mitchum, Charles Bronson, Klaus Kinski, Richard Widmark, Harvey Keitel, Telly Savalas, and Lawrence Tierney. The act of sodomy by Uehara on his best friend is a shocking scene that attacks the nerves of the viewer. The images from this scene are off beat and unsettling. Uehara seems in this scene to prefer being in the company of of his best friend than his girlfriend. Its scenes like this that gives the film a brutal and dark comic edge. You will never see a scene like this in a Hollywood picture nor for that matter in an American Independant Film because very few are bold and daring filmmakers. 3-4x Jugatsu/Boiling Point(1990) is the first true Takeshi Kitano film that has his trademarks of off beat images, moments of dullness, and sudden violence more completely than in his debut, Violent Cop(1989). Also the first film that Takeshi Kitano wrote and directed on his own. Its here that Takeshi Kitano came into his own as an auteur and movie maker. Takeshi Kitano has a passion for the sport of baseball which is why the main character is a member of his local town's baseball team. Takeshi Kitano films a flash forward sequence that reminds me of Point Blank(1967), the early films of Alain Resair and Nicolas Roeg, plus The Limey(1999). The acting portion of the film is not a strong point for the director here. Average in fact compared to the other departments of the motion picture. "Beat" Takeshi takes the cake with his amazing performance as the unpredictable, Uehara. Masahiko ono does alright as the average and lazy Masaki. The acting from the rest of the cast varies from person to person. A favorite motif of Takeshi Kitano is the scene of people hanging out and playing at the beach. In his best films, there is a scene where the main characters go to the beach to relax and take it easy. These scenes show the good nature of the characters of Uehara and his best friend when they are not doing bad things. The beach motif in Boiling Point(1990) is for the main characters a place to find peace and tranquility with its calm waves, soft sands, and cool blue skies. These scenes make the characters very likeable. A lot of the visual use and motifs from this film is used again in both Sonatine(1993), and Kids Return(1996). The scene where Uehara kills his boss with a machine gun is used in the climax of Sonatine(1993). The idea of the person who messes up in life plays an important role in Kids Return(1996). Suicide is a theme that plays a major role in both Boiling Point and Sonatine. If Violent Cop(1989) is the older brother of Fireworks(1997) than Boiling Point(1990) is the older brother of the masterpiece, Sonatine(1993). The violence in the film provides an interesting counterpoint to the dullness of life. Violence at times in here happens without reason or warning. Violence in the universe of "Beat" Takeshi is not pleasant nor romanticized but vicious and ugly. Violence in Boiling Point begins and ends quickly without any regards for the aftermath. The violent behavior from the characters of the film is something that is in all of us human beings whether we like it or not. The director is a genius at mixing images of humor with images of brutality. The visuals here are much more bizarre than in Violent Cop(1989). Takeshi Kitano is excellent at using images and natural sounds to tell a story. Boiling Point(1990) uses images with the same flair and style of the Silent film era. There are images of beauty and images of ugliness that makes the film fascinating to view. 3-4x Jugatsu/Boiling Point(1990) is the second chapter in the lifelong "Beat" Takeshi series. The editing is done at a rapid fire pace. The scene where Uehara bashes a bottle of beer over and over again is done with humor. Other humorous scenes are the sequence where Uehara asks his best friend to cut his finger for sleeping with his girlfriend even though he told him to do it and the scene where Masaki and his best friend have trouble firing a gun because the safety is off. Takeshi ends the film with his usual bleak finale.