Boiling Point

Summary

I have professed my admiration for Japanese actor and director Takashi Kitano before in other reviews. To myself (and other fans) his films are incredibly unique and interesting. Film Movement has been kind enough to recently release four of his films on Blu-ray. I started with Violent Cop and have been working through them chronologically. Boiling Point came out one year after Violent Cop and was the first film that Kitano had completely written by himself (whereas he rewrote Violent Cop during filming.) The result is one of the most perplexing and divisive Yakuza films ever made.

The story revolves around a young aloof baseball player and gas station attendant named Masaki (Yurei Yanagi.) Masaki is a little bit slow and barely making his way through life. One day at his gas pumping job he is punched by a gangster and attempts to retaliate. The gangster claims he has been injured (although it is impossible) and sends his people to seek recompense. Masaki‘s baseball coach Iguchi tries to sort out the problem because he had been a gangster before going straight. When Iguchi attacks one of the gangsters for his disrespect, he is badly beaten. Seeking to get a gun for Iguchi, Masaki and his friend Kazuo head to Okinawa where they encounter the off-the-wall crazy yakuza boss Takashi (Takeshi Kitano.) The film gets very strange from that point forward.

If you take a few minutes to read reviews of this film online, there are very few reviews that land in the middle. There is very little doubt that this film is entirely different than any Yakuza film made before (or to my knowledge after, although some Takashi Miike films bear a resemblance.) This film at times has long lingering slow paced shots, such as a full minute of two characters eating popsicles. It also has some explosive violence that can occur at almost any point. The hard sell for this film is that most audiences want adrenaline from beginning to end, or a slow-moving film with little violence. What they should realize is that Takeshita Kitano does not give a shit what they want.

Fans of Violent Cop will be impressed to see that Kitano once again proves himself a very capable director. The film is visually very strong. This film also has some of the same troubling aspects as the prior film, including a somewhat brazen attitude towards violence towards women on camera. It has even more comedic strength than the previous film though many will argue that the plot is lacking some of the focus of the prior film. I personally found the plot of the film completely original and intriguing. 

At the end of the day, I would probably still start with some of Kitano’s later films before you see his early films as they are a little more strange and slow-moving, but fans of Kitano and Violent Cop should feel right at home here. I personally really enjoyed it.

Video

Film Movement have provided a brand new 1080p HD transfer that was remastered specifically for this release in 2016 using an MPEG-4 AVC encode. The film is presented in an 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Similar to Violent Cop, fine detail is good, but the film has a little bit of softness due to the era it was filmed in. This transfer just barely surpasses that effort and looks pretty exceptional on Blu-ray. There is occasionally some large grain during some scenes at night, but overall I was very pleased with the efforts put in by Film Movement.

Audio

Boiling Point has been given a great sounding LPCM 2.0 track. This stereo track does not have a score or soundtrack to rely on, choosing to immerse the audience through the live sounds of the surroundings the characters experience. This experience will be familiar to fans of films like No Country for Old Men. The track sounded pretty good overall.

Supplements:

Okinawa Days: Takeshi’s Second Debut – (20:10, 1080p) like the featurette featured on Violent Cop’s Blu-ray, this is a strong but fairly short look into the film. This feature has interviews with both Yurei Yanaga and producer Kazuyoshi Okuyama. Well worth your time,

Japanese Theatrical Trailer

Trailers for the following:

Violent Cop Trailer

Kamikaze ‘89

The Quiet Earth

Sea Fog

Key of Life

The Pillow Book

Film Movement Trailer

Overall scores

Video – 4/5

Audio – 4.5/5

Supplements – 2.5/5

Overall – 4/5

Like Violent Cop, Boiling Point is a strange but wonderful piece of filmmaking from Takeshi Kitano. Like the previous film, it suffers from some of the same disturbing elements that will alienate some viewers. From reading reviews online, this is apparently a very divisive film. I enjoyed this film just slightly more than I enjoyed Violent Cop and I am thankful that Film Movement decided to release it on Blu-ray. Recommended.