There’s an undeniable charm to this fragmented but sentimental yakuza flick written, directed, acted, and painted by Takeshi Kitano, but this is another critical bandwagon I just can’t get on board. I leave it to the Tarantinos of this world. “Beat Takeshi” may be the Buster Keaton of Japan, but I find him as off-putting as ingratiating. His tangram storytelling, mixing pieces into various shapes, engages but does not convince. As the central character, a police officer who holds himself responsible for his partner getting shot and another officer killed, he turns to bank robbery to pay off loans from the mob, and to take his terminally ill wife on a final tour of Mt. Fuji, the ocean, and other Japanese sights. This film is sweet, funny, and (implicitly) violent, as assured as it is idiosyncratic, but it does not hold together for me, makes me watch but not follow. (1997, dvd, n.) *6*
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