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Product Description
Original and elegaic Yakuza drama from cult actor-director Takeshi 'Beat' Kitano. Murakawa (Kitano) is a powerful and trusted gangster who is persuaded to travel to Okinawa to help clear up a dispute between rival gangs. The task proves anything but easy, and as bloody conflict erupts around him, Murakawa realises that he has been set up, and decides to retreat to a secret seaside hideaway, where he and his friends kill time and play games as they wait for their enemies to arrive.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 23 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:DVD
The movie is great, my favorite Beat Takeshi movie, unfortunately the DVD itself is quite bad.
First, it's not an anamorphic transfer, so you have to use the zoom if you have a widescreen TV. Motion in dimly lit scenes is smeared, colors aren't saturated enough, and the whole image is very soft, without crisp details.
I also have the VHS from ICA Projects, and it actually looks better overall than the DVD.
The second problem are the subtitles, the translation is horrible at times when compared to the VHS. One great piece of dialog goes something like this:
- You're the stupid one
- No, you are the stupid thing
There are also US and Hong Kong DVD releases of Sonatine, but I haven't had the chance to check them out yet.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:DVD
I first saw this movie on tv, and had no expectations. It remains one of the most memorable films I have seen in the past 7 years, with Takeshi Kitano putting forth a superb performance. The lack of dialogue in many scenes displays fine acting rather than being boring. Being quite a dark movie, Sonatine put many Kitano fans off - some called it his worst - but it is definitely worth a look if you like him, or even if you've never heard of him. Be prepared for some wonderful imagery, a dark sense of humour and a little violence. Not for "Gone in 60 seconds" fans!
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
For those of you who have never entered the world of Beat Takeshi Kitano, you couldn't go wrong with Sonatine. Outbursts of explosive violence at the beginning and end, is interspursed with tranquil sentementality. I can't remember a mob film where the hero is so down on his luck he has to flee or face the consquences, and Kitano makes his acting as this particular mobster look like an artform. Sonatine is will go down as a classic Japanese cult classic and leaves it's Hollywood counterparts in the shade, relegating similar films into average thrillers, where as this film injects intellegence into a tried and tested formula. Buy it!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By I Talukdar
Format:VHS Tape
This is the second 'Beat' Takeshi film I saw. Although Violent Cop was very engaging and watchable - Sonatine surpasses it. The reason for this is that the film presents the characters in such a way that you are able to identify with them during their turbulant times. There is a great deal of humour surrounding the central characters who appear hapless at times and very child like at other times. Look out for the scene with the Sumo wrestling - very funny.
A very serious and funny film that will have you glued from start to finish. Kitano's best film.
Excellent.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:VHS Tape
This is the first movie of Kitano-san I saw, and I keep watching it again and again. It is poetic, sad, funny and fatalistic. The burned out yakuza is a favorite character of mine, but in Sonachin we also see a colorful cast around the man who inevitably must confront oblivion after all these years of playing the dangerous game of life and death. Sonachin is also backed up with beautiful scenes of the ocean and countryside of Okinawa, and a soundtrack that will give you the shivers. The main theme, full of tension, sounds like a furious run with death to an inevitable climax of fate, while the music accompanying the sumo wrestling on the beach brings haunting memories of childhood. In all, this movie still inspires me the most in both music and writing, and it's definately one of the best films of the 1990's.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:VHS Tape
This is brilliance. Cool, calm yet powerful and violent, reflected in the setting of the seashore. Watch this - the Sumo scenes on the beach will stay with you forever.
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
First introduced to the man Takeshi by a Japanese girlfriend, the relationship with Takeshi has lasted far longer.
Thse films appear "slow" for a modern European audience raised on a fast food junk diet of American grease, whizz, piff and bang. This is because there is something of the languid Asian character traced over carefully within the scene depiction. Mirroring the world at large, violence comes in sustained spurts and then it is over just as quick. As the film shows there are long pauses in between, where the characters try to amuse themselves and us. These are hilarious especially the toy wrestling. It is not all about violence, it is about learning to cope with waiting.
The film shifts from standard gangsta as we love and know in the various Godfathers to a love story to slaptick. Each element is not tacked on but finely woven within. The violence is graphic and underneath all is a Shakespearean sub plot.
Asian films eschew the backslapping bonhomie of standard Americana. This is why this film will appeal to fans of Mulholland Drive rather than Die Hard 10. In Asia there is no sentiment around love winning out over despair. The battle is enjoined and the answer is never as pretty as the people who play the parts. There is a resounding nihilism that pulls this altogether.
Beat Takeshi has a presence that is hard to define when compared to a Western counterpoint, perhaps Bogart is the closest, middle aged tough, cynical, ladies man and violent However Takeshi is both more robotic and also comic. Witness him trying to drive his beloved, trying to show off and ending in the ditch. The heroes are essentially flawed. Then there are the machismo games of Russian Roulette which are squeamish in their tension.... Read more ›
Thse films appear "slow" for a modern European audience raised on a fast food junk diet of American grease, whizz, piff and bang. This is because there is something of the languid Asian character traced over carefully within the scene depiction. Mirroring the world at large, violence comes in sustained spurts and then it is over just as quick. As the film shows there are long pauses in between, where the characters try to amuse themselves and us. These are hilarious especially the toy wrestling. It is not all about violence, it is about learning to cope with waiting.
The film shifts from standard gangsta as we love and know in the various Godfathers to a love story to slaptick. Each element is not tacked on but finely woven within. The violence is graphic and underneath all is a Shakespearean sub plot.
Asian films eschew the backslapping bonhomie of standard Americana. This is why this film will appeal to fans of Mulholland Drive rather than Die Hard 10. In Asia there is no sentiment around love winning out over despair. The battle is enjoined and the answer is never as pretty as the people who play the parts. There is a resounding nihilism that pulls this altogether.
Beat Takeshi has a presence that is hard to define when compared to a Western counterpoint, perhaps Bogart is the closest, middle aged tough, cynical, ladies man and violent However Takeshi is both more robotic and also comic. Witness him trying to drive his beloved, trying to show off and ending in the ditch. The heroes are essentially flawed. Then there are the machismo games of Russian Roulette which are squeamish in their tension.... Read more ›
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3.8 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Kitano's first masterpiece.
Sonatine tells the story of middle aged yakuza boss Murakawa who is ordered to take his gang to Okinawa to settle a minor gangland conflict and return peace to the area. Read more
Published on 4 July 2010 by Ernie
5.0 out of 5 stars
Utterly Wonderful
I'm going to concerntrate more on the film than the technical aspects of subtitles and transfers as I'm no technical expert. Read more
Published on 22 April 2008 by pjr
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting film
Mmmhhh. This was the first of Beat's film I had seen and it came highly recommended. Overall I enjoyed it but in places it was overly slow in pace. Read more
Published on 17 July 2007 by S Ablett
5.0 out of 5 stars
OFFICIAL- WORST SUBTITLES EVER !!!
This film is brilliant- however the DVD is awful, the subtitles come up too late or too early, if they come up at all. Read more
Published on 8 July 2004 by "capt_n_m_gilbert"
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great DVD for a great movie
Sonatine is a very good movie, I'd even consider it as a masterpiece. Unfortunately, the editions so far have been very unfair with the movie (bad quality masters and poor analog... Read more
Published on 21 Jan 2003 by Jose Luis Romeu Miguel
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