Sonatine

This article is about the Japanese film. For Maurice Ravel's piano piece, see Sonatine (Ravel).

Sonatine
original poster
Directed by	Takeshi Kitano
Produced by	Masayuki Mori Hisao Nabeshima Ritta Saito
Written by	Takeshi Kitano
Starring	Beat Takeshi Aya Kokumai Tetsu Watanabe
Music by	Joe Hisaishi
Cinematography	Katsumi Yanagishima
Editing by	Takeshi Kitano
Distributed by	Shouchiku Daichii Kougyo Miramax Films
Release date(s)	September 10, 1993 May 3, 1995 April 10, 1998
Running time	94 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Sonatine (ソナチネ, Sonachine) is a 1993 Japanese film by Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Kitano. It won numerous awards and became one of Kitano's most successful and praised films, garnering him a sizable international fan base.

Plot

Kitano plays Murakawa, a Tokyo yakuza tiring of gangster life. Along with some henchmen, he is sent by his boss to Okinawa supposedly to mediate a dispute between their allies, the Nakamatsu clan, and the Anan clan. Murakawa openly suspects that the assignment is an attempt to have him removed and even beats up one of his colleagues, Takahashi, who he distrusts, but ends up going with his men. He finds that the dispute between the clans is insignificant and while wondering why he was sent to Okinawa at all, the group's temporary headquarters are bombed and they are then ambushed in a bar, killing several of Murakawa's men.

Fleeing to the seaside, the survivors take refuge in a remote beach house belonging to a brother of one of the Nakamatsu members and decide to wait for the trouble to blow over. Whilst spending time at the beach, the group engages in childish games and pranks and the group begins to enjoy themselves. However, the men's play inevitably has a violent undertone. When two of his men alternate shooting at a beer can on each other's head, Murakawa turns it into a game of Russian roulette. Putting the seemingly loaded gun to his head, he pulls the trigger on the last chamber. The chamber is revealed to be empty and Murakawa is unharmed.

He later dreams of the Russian roulette game, although in his dream, the revolver is loaded and he is killed. When he wakes up, he walks down to the shore. He sees a car pull up, and a man drags a woman into the sand and proceeds to attempt to rape her. Murakawa stoically watches for a while and then walks past them toward the beach house. When the man realizes Murakawa has been there the whole time and shouts at him, Murakawa headbutts him. When the man gets up, he pulls out a knife and threatens Murakawa, who shoots him dead. The woman joins Murakawa and the gang at the beach house, and comes frequently to visit, spending time with Murakawa.

Later, an assassin disguised as a fisherman appears. He kills several people, including the boss of the Nakamatsu clan, and one of Murakawa's men, in the middle of a Frisbee match. Learning that Takahashi is arriving in Okinawa, Murakawa and two of his surviving men visit his hotel. Unable to find him at first, they unexpectedly run into Takahashi and the assassin in the elevator, which results in a shootout, killing the assassin and Murakawa's men. Murakawa then learns from interrogating Takahashi that their boss had intended all along to partner with the Anan clan and had sent Murakawa to Okinawa in order to kill him and thus take over his turf. He also learns that the boss will be meeting with the Anan that night in a hotel. Takahashi is killed and Murakawa sets off with the only survivor of the group, a member of the Nakamatsu clan, who helps him by rigging the electricity in the hotel to go off at a certain time. Murakawa tells the woman that he may come back, and the woman promises to wait for him.

Later that night while waiting for all the yakuza to arrive, the Nakamatsu member asks Murakawa to take him with him, but admits that he has had enough when Murakawa asks. When the electricity goes off, Murakawa goes into the hotel and kills all the yakuza with a Colt Commando. The next morning, while the woman continues to wait for him, Murakawa drives to a spot near the beach and commits suicide by shooting himself in the head. The scene then switches to the car and the horizon and slowly fades.

Cast

• Takeshi Kitano as Murakawa
• Aya Kokumai as Miyuki
• Tetsu Watanabe as Uechi
• Masanobu Katsumura as Ryoji
• Susumu Terajima as Ken
• Ren Ōsugi as Katagiri
• Tonbo Zushi as Kitajima
• Ken'ichi Yajima as Takahashi
• Eiji Minakata as The Hit Man

Soundtrack

Sonatine
Soundtrack album by Joe Hisaishi
Released	9 june, 1993
Length	51:11
Label	Toshiba EMI

The CD soundtrack was released in 1999 by Milan Records, too.

1. "Sonatine I (Act of Violence)"
2. "Light and Darkness"
3. "Play on the Sands"
4. "Rain After That"
5. "On the Fullmoon of Mystery"
6. "Into a Trance"
7. "Sonatine II (In the Beginning)"
8. "Magic Mushroom"
9. "Eye Witness"
10. "Runaway Trip"
11. "Moebius Band"
12. "Die Out of Memories"
13. "See You..."
14. "Sonatine III (Be Over)"

Fukasaku's influence

Sonatine was highly inspired by, and explicitly refers to, Kinji Fukasaku's 1971 Sympathy for the Underdog, starring Koji Tsuruta. Plot, location and characters are similar in both movies, even the Okinawan theme song featured in Fukasaku's Sympathy for the Underdog appears in Sonatine. Since Takeshi Kitano started directing, on Violent Cop, thanks to Kinji Fukasaku's withdrawal, some believes that Sonatine is an homage to Fukasaku, one of Kitano's masters along with Akira Kurosawa.^{[citation needed]}

It is also notable that Sonatine shares many thematic qualities with Kitano's 1997 later film, Hana-bi, which is considered by many to be his masterpiece, since it earned him a Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival.

Local and international reception

The film's theatrical release in Japan was a commercial failure as Kitano was only perceived as a popular owarai comedian, and the audience was not prepared, nor capable, to accept him as a credible gangster noir character. However with Kitano not yet famous abroad, the movie would later benefit of this different situation especially in the European market.

Sonatine was showcased in a few small theaters in France where it received lukewarm acclaim from specialized professionals. It was also screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival. French publisher and notorious movie-goer, Jean-Pierre Dionnet (Canal +/Studio Canal), reported in an interview, that someone convinced Alain Delon to watch Sonatine arguing that Kitano was a fan of Le Samouraï. Delon was seriously taken aback, and talking about Kitano's acting, said "what's THAT? [...], this is not an actor [...], he only got three facial expressions and he almost doesn't talk on top of this". Most professionals around Dionnet had the same reject reaction, but the French publisher was both struck and puzzled by this new genre. He contacted the Japanese distributor in order to buy the license for the exploitation of Sonatine, but his request was strongly rejected. Dionnet had to insist during several months to finally discover that the Shochiku didn't want to release Sonatine abroad, claiming the movie was "too Japanese" and would not be accepted, nor understood, by western audiences. Eventually Dionnet learned that the distributor didn't want to release the license because of its commercial failure in Japan. Dionnet had an agreement with the Shouchiku arguing that the French audience didn't know Kitano's career and would accept his violent character more easily. He bought Sonatine and three additional subtitled movies, Violent Cop, Boiling Point and the latest, Kids Return, all of which performed poorly in Japan (A Scene at the Sea and Getting Any? were not licensed). In 1995, Sonatine entered the 13th Festival du Film Policier de Cognac (Thriller Film Festival of Cognac) in France, where it was critically acclaimed, and lastly, Sonatine, followed by the three other movies were broadcasted on the French channel Canal+ few months later. Then a couple of years later on the Franco-German public channel Arte. A video release followed, including a DVD edition available in Dionnet's collection "Asian Classics".

In 1997, Hana-bi was premiered in Italy, at the Venice Film Festival, where it earned Kitano the first prize, known as the Golden Lion award. The critical success of the movie, led a part of the Japanese audience to reconsider him as a true, important, filmmaker and earn the attention of North American publishers.

As soon as 1995, Takeshi Kitano (credited as "Takeshi") played the role of a yakuza in American director Robert Longo's SF thriller, Johnny Mnemonic. Although in North America Sonatine was released in theaters in April 1998 and, another Kinji Fukasaku enthusiast, Quentin Tarantino, released a subtitled video edition in 2000 as part of his "Rolling Thunder Pictures" collection. The same year, Kitano was convinced by his producer to go in the United States where he filmed his first (and last) movie outside Japan. Brother was shot in Los Angeles with an American crew and local actors including Omar Epps. In an interview, Kitano self-admitted he was not fully satisfied with the final result of Brother and that he regretted his "Hollywood" adventure which was supposed to bring him a broader audience with a higher exposure. Kitano confessed he had no intention of shooting outside Japan anymore.

External links

• Sonatine at the Internet Movie Database
• Sonatine at AllRovi
• Sonatine at Rotten Tomatoes