Real-life yakuza are very different from those portrayed in this movie. They're more interested in making money, in liquor and women and gambling. They're much, much less inclined to bloodshed.
Out of curiosity, I did a web search. A (Japanese-language) report at www.police.pref.okinawa.jp, the Japanese prefectural police web site, indicates that between 1961 and 1991, there were a total of 20 deaths caused by yakuza in Okinawa. Though it has its own problems, Itami's "Minbo no Onna" is probably a more realistic look at today's yakuza. ...OK, so the violence in Sonatine is exaggerated. Wildly, even. Is it worth seeing anyway?
Well, no. There really isn't much here that's original, and the few amusing scenes (the sumo-on-the-beach scene, for example) are wildly out of place. The whole thing comes off as an ego-boosting trip for actor/director Kitano--who, as another reviewer notes, can act when he really wants to, as he proved in "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence". Unfortunately he doesn't appear to have wanted to in this movie.
Roger Ebert is duly impressed with Kitano's Murakawa, the main character, explaining that "The less he gives, the less he reveals, the less he says and does, the more his presence grows, until he becomes the cold, dangerous center of the story." Unfortunately Ebert makes the blunder, common to many Westerners, of mistaking reticence and listlessness for Zen-like profundity. This is rather like regarding a Sly Stallone character as profound because he only grunts now and then.
I've seen worse, but I'm not inclined to look for any more Kitano flics.
4/10
Out of curiosity, I did a web search. A (Japanese-language) report at www.police.pref.okinawa.jp, the Japanese prefectural police web site, indicates that between 1961 and 1991, there were a total of 20 deaths caused by yakuza in Okinawa. Though it has its own problems, Itami's "Minbo no Onna" is probably a more realistic look at today's yakuza. ...OK, so the violence in Sonatine is exaggerated. Wildly, even. Is it worth seeing anyway?
Well, no. There really isn't much here that's original, and the few amusing scenes (the sumo-on-the-beach scene, for example) are wildly out of place. The whole thing comes off as an ego-boosting trip for actor/director Kitano--who, as another reviewer notes, can act when he really wants to, as he proved in "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence". Unfortunately he doesn't appear to have wanted to in this movie.
Roger Ebert is duly impressed with Kitano's Murakawa, the main character, explaining that "The less he gives, the less he reveals, the less he says and does, the more his presence grows, until he becomes the cold, dangerous center of the story." Unfortunately Ebert makes the blunder, common to many Westerners, of mistaking reticence and listlessness for Zen-like profundity. This is rather like regarding a Sly Stallone character as profound because he only grunts now and then.
I've seen worse, but I'm not inclined to look for any more Kitano flics.
4/10