Kids Return (1996)

Kids Return (1996) is a title I remember because it would always be programmed on SBS. I was aware of Takeshi Kitano as a teenager, mainly when Fireworks was released and received praise from critics like Margaret and David on The Movie Show. There’s a power and beauty to Fireworks with the subplot of the […]

Boiling Point (1990)

Takeshi Kitano treats violence with the same structural impact as building a gag in comedy. Boiling Point (1990) veers between violence as a joke – a call back, or a punchline, like when a young kid refuses a helmet on his first motorcycle, and then cut to him sitting stunned with a bloody face – […]

High Heels (1991)

High Heels (1991) is like Pedro Almodóvar inviting the audience to a boutique shop to peruse and sample. Melodrama is the purpose for being there, but the pleasure lies in admiring and marvelling at all the wares: the wigs, the hairstyles, the dresses, the shoes, the gloves, the earrings. High Heels has a striking colour […]

Charisma (1999)

1999 is often discussed as a great year in cinema, and key to that is because it was 1999. All the celebrated and successful films of that year tend to share themes about the destruction of the old, the beginning of the new. Or are vibrating on end of the century, millennium anxieties – fear […]

Eyes Of The Spider (1998)

1997 was a busy year for Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Serpent’s Path and Eyes Of The Spider (1998) were two movies united by the same theme – revenge – and the same star – Sho Aikawa. They were low budget movies for the straight-to-video market and each apparently only had a two week shoot. In between, Kurosawa […]