Hana-bi (1997)

English Title: Fireworks
Rating: 50

The following review was written by me and first published on May 14, 1999, under the title _"Death Wish" Meets "Ikiru"_.

Characters are unidimensional. Kitano spends quite some time displaying his own paintings (in the movie they are the paintings made by the paralyzed cop), which I liked, but occupy far more movie time than they are entitled to. Most of the movie is simply boring. Some moments of shock here and there. Some gratuitous violence. A primary and questionable morality pervading it all.