Hana-bi is a very beautiful and romantic gangster film, I personally believe that.
From week 8 to week 10, there are three gangster films for us, Hana-bi is the most special one that I like. I can’t even believe that this is a gangster film, Hana-bi is totally different to other two gangster films, infernal affairs and Rakta Chariatra.
As I said in class in last week, I personally don’t like gangster film, because I don’t like too much noisy film, I don’t like to see film full of blood and fighting, and I think most gangster film’s story is very similar, nothing for me to expect. So I don’t quite understand why gangster film is popular around the world. I like Hana-bi because it’s violent film rather than gangster. I remember that on the lecture of that week, Vikrant quoted Takeshi Kitano that ‘I intentionally shoot violence to make the audience feel real pain. I have never and will never shoot violence as if it’s some kind of video game.’
The main character of this film, Nishi, a little bit crazy man mixed with gentle, romance and violence. He is violent, but we can see from this film that he treat his wife very kind, never will be violent to her. Even he betray his police identification for her wife, finally they killed themselves. The last shoot, the screen of the sea and sky, and the little girl, with the sound of two gunshots, my feeling and emotion is very complicated. I found out that I went deeply into this film already, I paid emotion into this film. ‘The less the characters react, the more scope the viewer has to read emotions and significance. ’ (2003) The less the Nishi says in the film, the more curiosity I will have on him. Complex personality of Nishi, make him very attractive and captivating, Kitano Takeshi does not provide fixed meanings but rather its pluralism results in its ability to be read in a variety of ways, both negative and positive.
‘This notion of ‘furious peace’ perhaps summarises the entire film as Kitano creates an exposition of sadness, violence and anger amidst an often beautiful, funny and musing on the nature of life and death,’ according to Taylor-Jones, Kate E.. Rising Sun (2013). Furious peace perhaps could be used to summarise this entire film, grief movement could be used to describe my feeling at the end. Kitano himself experienced a lot, compared to other many director, he understands more and look overs more. I think this is one of the reason of why his movies are so excellent. Romantic and violent man.
references:
Taylor-Jones, Kate E.. Rising Sun, Divided Land, Columbia University Press, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rmit/detail.action?docID=2145051.
Taylor-Jones, Kate E.. The Legacy of a Violent Man: Kitano Takeshi. Rising Sun, Divided Land, Columbia University Press.
Comments I did:
Hi Yolanda,
For big movie names like Hana-bi, there are of course several readings and people can also have different thoughts about it. I really like the way you put your personal feelings about the film in this blog 🙂
I totally agree with you that what makes Kitano a master is that he does not explain much! In Hana-bi, dialogues are rare, actions are quick and immediate. There is no room for any lengthy explanation, which leaves the audience more opportunities to “read emotions and significance” as you said.
I am glad that you think Nishi is a romantic and violent man. Indeed I think the character of Nishi is very complicated with two opposing characteristics: loving yet also brutal! He protects and cares for those he loves, but can be extremely violent and cold-blooded, killing people in just a blink of an eye! Do you think Nishi’s characteristics are the result of Kitano’s split personalities himself? How so?
Best,
Duong
Thank you for your reply above all, Duong.
To answer your question:
I can’t say Nishi’s characteristics are the result of Kitano’s split personalities himeself because I don’t even really get close to him. I can read his life unbelievable life experience on book and others, but I am still just an audience. However, I will say Nishi’s characteristics is similar to Kitano’s personalities, in other words, I can see a part of Kitano’s personalities on Nishi.
Go online and do some searching, we can find out that he grew up in love, and he was a comic actor when he was young. So I believe that he actually know, at least, what is love, like Nishi. Although he know what is love, although he actually is humor, the love is not to the whole world, the humor is cold humor.
I feel that, just personal feeling, there is a obvious point that I can see from both of Kitano and Nishi, these two men they are satirizing the world, at the same time they are loving people around them.
Yolanda
Furious Peace!
What a great thing to focus on during your discussion of Hana-bi, I agree it does perfectly describe both the films plot, but also the acting of Nishi and the violence the movie so quickly descends into surrounded by such a peaceful beachside setting.
Interesting to note Infernal Affairs uses a similar technique in contrasting the peaceful or dull silver skylines of Hong Kong and often drowning out he action in beautifully constructed shots to separate us as an audience from the violence.
Looking at Nishi, you seem to read his actions as romantic, this is one thing I didn’t read from the film. Personally if you look at the way he acts around his wife I think romantic is far from true, whilst the characters do share some moments of genuine romance there is such a sad disconnection between the two because I believe he finds it difficult to love. Maybe because of the life of violence he has led?
Thanks what do you think?
Thank you for your reply, Finn.
Very interesting, and surprising opinions. You say that you don’t think Nishi is a romantic guy as I think, and also you think the love that he act to his wife is far from true. For this I will argue that it’s possible because we have different understanding and definition of romance. The romance Nishi acts, is truly different to other romance. He won’t sing to his wife, he won’t even often say love to his wife, he won’t even take photos with his wife when they were in the hostel. Well for he won’t take photos with his wife this screen I don’t understand, I can’t see why. Maybe this is where you find out that the love between two is far from true.
He is violent, but the violence is relative. We can’t say violent guy is unworthy to be loved or fall in love with somebody. Their love, I don’t know how to say, it’s quite complex. Love is hard to understand.