Sonatine
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| Sonatine | |
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| Directed by | Takeshi Kitano |
| Produced by | Masayuki Mori Hisao Nabeshima Ritta Saito |
| Written by | Takeshi Kitano |
| Starring | Takeshi Kitano Aya Kokumai Tetsu Watanabe |
| Music by | Joe Hisaishi |
| Cinematography | Katsumi Yanagishima |
| Editing by | Takeshi Kitano |
| Distributed by | Shouchiku Daichii Kougyo |
| Release date(s) |  Sept 10, 1993 May 3, 1995 |
| Running time | 94 min |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| IMDb profile | |
- For the piano piece by Maurice Ravel, see Sonatine (Ravel).
Sonatine (ソナチネ Sonachine?) is a 1993 film written, directed, edited by, and starring, Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Kitano. It won numerous awards and became one of Kitano's most successful and praised films, garnering him a sizable international fan base.
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[edit] Plot synopsis
Kitano plays Murakawa, a Tokyo yakuza tiring of gangster life. Along with a few of his henchmen, he is sent by his boss to Okinawa to help end a gang war, supposedly to mediate between two warring clans. He finds that the disupte between the clans is insignificant and whilst wondering why he was sent to Okinawa at all, Murakawa's headquarters are bombed and he and his gang are ambushed in a bar.
Fleeing to the seaside, they find a remote beach house and decide to wait for the trouble to blow over. Whilst spending time at the beach, the violence of the opening act is replaced by childish games and pranks and the group begin to enjoy themselves, setting traps in the sand for one another and playing with cardboard Sumo wrestlers. However, the men's play inevitably has a violent undertone. After more play-fighting, Murakawa pulls out his revolver and the gang practice shooting at a beer can, until Murakawa turns it into a game of Russian roulette. Putting the seemingly loaded gun to his head, he pulls the trigger on the last chamber. The chamber is revealed to be empty and Murakawa is unharmed.
He later dreams of the Russian roulette game, although in his dream, the revolver is loaded and he is killed. When he wakes up, he walks down to the shore. He sees a car pull up, and a man drags a woman into the sand and proceeds to rape her. Murakawa stoically watches for a while and then walks past them toward the beach house. When the man realises Murakawa has been there the whole time and shouts at him, Murakawa head-butts him. When the man gets up, he pulls out a knife and issues a threat, which is met with Murakawa shooting him dead.
The woman joins Murakawa and the gang at the beach house, and joins in the fun. Later, a gunman wearing a straw hat is seen, who kills several people including one of Murakawa's men, in the middle of a Frisbee match. Vengeance draws Murakawa back into the gangster world and as he leaves, the woman promises to wait for him. When the surviving men decide to kidnap a member from the rival gang and assassinate him, Murakawa's men, along with the rival gang and the man in the straw hat are all killed but Murakawa and his kidnapped victim. Somewhere in another beach, Murakawa beats his target and locks him inside the car and destroys the car.
Until evening falls, Murakawa removes a M16 out of the pink bag seen earlier in the movie, and storms alone in to a type of convention full of rival Yakuza members responsible for the death of Murakawa's men. He later ends up shooting all members down. But while Murakawa was gunning down the rival gang, a okinawan member of Murakawa, who was the only one who survived from the rival gang and eventually becomes the sole survivor, along with the woman, throughout the whole movie, flees in horror after watching flashes in the building made by the machine gun and runs away. He is never seen again.
Eventually, while the woman continues to wait for Murakawa, he stops the car somewhere in the middle of the road which heads for the beach, and commits suicide by shooting himself on the head. The scene then switches to the car and the horizon and slowly fades.
[edit] Influences
It is also notable that Sonatine shares many thematic qualities with Kitano's 1997 later film, Hana-bi, which is considered by many to be his masterpiece, since it earned him a Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival. Sonatine was highly inspired by, and explicitly refers to, Kinji Fukasaku's 1971 Sympathy for the Underdog, starring Koji Tsuruta. Plot, location and characters are similar in both movies, even the Okinawan theme song featured in Fukasaku's Sympathy for the Underdog appears in Sonatine. Since Takeshi Kitano started directing, on Violent Cop, thanks to Kinji Fukasaku's withdrawal, some believes that Sonatine is an homage to Fukasaku, one of Kitano's masters along with Akira Kurosawa.
[edit] Local and International releases
However it should be noted that the film's theatrical release in Japan was a commercial failure as Kitano was only perceived as a highly popular gagman, and the audience was not prepared, nor capable, to accept him as a credible gangster noir character.
Sonatine was showcased in a few small theaters in France where it received lukewarm acclaim from specialized professionals. French publisher and notorious movie-goer, Jean-Pierre Dionnet (Canal +), reported in an interview, that someone convinced Alain Delon to watch Sonatine arguing that Kitano was a fan of Le Samouraï. Delon was seriously taken aback, and talking about Kitano's acting, said "what's THAT? [...], this is not an actor [...], he only got three facial expressions and he almost doesn't talk on top of this". Most professionals around Dionnet had the same reject reaction, but the French publisher was both struck and puzzled by this new genre. He contacted the Japanese distributor in order to buy the license for the exploitation of Sonatine, but his request was strongly rejected. Dionnet had to insist during several months to finally discover that the Shochiku didn't want to release Sonatine abroad, claiming the movie was "too Japanese" and would not be accepted, nor understood, by western audiences. Eventually Dionnet, learned that the distributor didn't want to release the license because of its commercial failure in Japan. Dionnet had an agreement with the Shouchiku arguing that the French audience didn't know Kitano's career and would accept his violent character more easily. He bought Sonatine and three additional subtitled movies, Violent Cop, Boiling Point and the latest, Kids Return, all of which preformed poorly in Japan (A Scene at the Sea and Getting Any? were not licensed). In 1995, Sonatine entered the 13th Festival du Film Policier de Cognac (Thriller Film Festival of Cognac) in France, where it was critically acclaimed, and lastly, Sonatine, followed by the three other movies were broadcasted on the French channel Canal+ few months later. Then a couple of years later on the Franco-German public channel Arte. A video release followed, including a DVD edition available in Dionnet's collection "Asian Classics".
In 1997, Hana-bi was premiered in Italy, at the Venice Film Festival, where it earned Kitano the first prize, known as the Golden Lion award. The critical success of the movie, led a part of the Japanese audience to reconsider him as a true, important, filmmaker and earn the attention of North American publishers. The same year, Hana-bi was nominated for the "Best Foreign Film" in the French Academy of Cinema, and it won the "Critics Prize" at the São Paulo International Film Festival in Brazil.
In France, Hana-bi was released in DVD by Arte Video, in 1999.
In North America, Sonatine was released in theaters in 1998 and, another Kinji Fukasaku enthusiast, Quentin Tarantino, released a subtitled video edition in 2000 as part of his "Rolling Thunder Pictures" collection. The same year, Kitano was convinced by his producer to go in the United States where he filmed his first (and last) movie outside Japan. Brother was shot in Los Angeles with an American crew and local actors including Omar Epps. In an interview, Kitano self-admitted he was not fully satisfied with the final result of Brother and that he regretted his "Hollywood" adventure which was supposed to bring him a broader audience with a higher exposure. Kitano confessed he had no intention of shooting outside Japan anymore.
[edit] Sources
- Jean-Pierre Dionnet's interview on the Sonatine DVD edition, published in Jean-Pierre Dionnet's "Asian Classics" collection (DesFilms/Studio Canal), France, 2001 (EDV 384)
- Takeshi Kitano interview on the Brother DVD edition, published by TF1 Vidéo, France, 2001 (EDV 1035).
[edit] External links
Violent Cop • Boiling Point • A Scene at the Sea • Sonatine • Getting Any? • Kids Return • Hana-bi • Kikujiro • Brother • Dolls • Zatoichi • Takeshis'
