Boiling Point (1990)

Director: Takeshi Kitano

Cast: Takeshi Kitano, Yûrei Yanagi, Yuriko Ishida

Synopsis: Two junior baseball players seek revenge on the local yakuza for attacking their coach.

The middle portion of Beat Takeshi’s Yakuza trilogy (although it can be watched independently from the others), Boiling Point manages to combine humour, violence and poignancy in a typically quirky piece of work punctuated by shots of simple beauty.  As usual, Takeshi allows his camera to contemplate the object of its gaze long after the action has passed, something which encourages the viewer to reflect upon what they have just witnessed and so enrich their viewing experience.  Takeshi appears as a psychologically unstable small-time hood who is both frightening and funny in equal measure. If you’ve never seen a Takeshi film before this might not make you a fan, but if you’re familiar with any of his other work then you won’t be disappointed by Boiling Point.

(Reviewed 12th March 2012)