Hana-bi

A Japanese crime drama. Not what I expected at all. It is quite slow, there isn't a lot of dialogue at times, there aren't many characters.

But I found something about the main character Nishi-san quite interesting. He is almost enigmatic at the start. He doesn't say or do much. What he does do is whatever he wants, or so it seems.

As the film progresses you realise that Nishi is a fairly ordinary cop who has been dealt a bad hand. A really bad hand. So bad in fact that he has given up on the world... and most of the people in it, apart from a select few.

Gradually it becomes clear that Nishi is on a mission to show the world it can go fuck itself. He takes a destructive path, but because he doesn't care about defeat, he steamrollers all opposition.

We know that ultimately Nishi's quiet rampage will end in tragedy. But really the tragedy happened before the start of the film, so what we see is his long defiant finale.

Not always my kind of film. But on this occasion I really enjoyed it.