Boiling Point

Quite possibly my favourite Kitano to date as I work through his filmography – the elliptical and choppy plotting and editing gives the film a light and dreamy quality, which adds even more resonance depending on your interpretation of the final scene; interesting that Kitano hands himself by far and away the most vile and contemptible character in the film, and plays him with an eccentric, droll quality that helps some of the graphic violence (sexual and otherwise) go down much easier. Picking up notes and themes from BLUE VELVET all over this, and the film is at once the most straightforward and intriguingly scattered of Kitano’s films.