Takeshi Kitano's FIREWORKS (aka Hana-Bi)
A question that I dont think I see ever pondered much less asked in a Yakuza vs Cops crime film: How does one find some semblance of inner peace and a re-connection with oneself, or the world at large, after a horrifically violent, traumatic near-killing? There are passages here where a paralyzed gun-shot victim stares at paintings of some surreal and odd looking flowers, and Kitano shows us these flowers. Who else would do this? Or have the ending this has on the beach where it leaves on a sense that life is going to continue... or end... or something.... I won't spoil it. Fireworks is marked not by what it is about but entirely the idiosyncratic way the director goes about it, hie we see his character and those around him grapple with the aftermath of a profound act of violence. Some films about the Yakuza and the police and crime from Japan will grapple with more deeply-felt, even spiritual dimensions of what violence does to people and the mind and body, but it's a small h...
