Takeshi Kitano’s fourth directorial effort remains his greatest masterpiece. The director-actor offers a different type of gangster film with this surreal, minimalist drama, about a group of gangsters who flee to a remote beach house in Okinawa while waiting for recent gang troubles to blow over. Like children on summer vacation, the gangsters spend their days digging sand pits, playing sumo, setting off fireworks and even indulging in a game of Russian roulette. Kitano intentionally deviates from the usual cinematic stylization of gangsters, transforming them into ordinary men trapped in dead-end jobs – even when their job involves inflicting violence on others.

1/5

(Thu)

5:00pm

Cinema, Hong Kong Film Archive

Post-screening talk with Thomas Shin