Chi to hone

I was totally stunned with this one. As Kitano is my favorite actor from the Japanese cinema, I found this movie depressing, disgusting, sad, desperate - as it should be. A great movie. Beat Takeshi did great job with this one. My primary feelings was: Im glad,I don't have a living like these people do. Im glad that Kitano show me another aspect of real life somewhere from the bottom. The movie is not rushing anywhere - the scenes talks themselves. Sex, violence, silent relations. He showed us a man that exist, a man that we all fear. A man who has a life anyways. I agree with edison-chang who said it is a Great Piece of depressing Junk - yes, it is. But someone said: In the eye of the beast - a tear. May be there was a small grain of humanity left in the hero of Kitano. May be ?!?

I've read some of the comments below. And I see people disappointed. Some of you does not find any sense in motion picture of Kitano. Some of you found it a clueless junk. I find it brilliant - and we are all right. The true is that Kitano always plays gangsters in his movies. Mostly gangsters. Why is he so violent?! Because it need to be - the gangsters found their way in the society by being violent. In this movie he is gangster too. He takes what he wants and being passive is the only opportunity for people around him - thats the misery. Such places exist - such persons do exist - everything seems to be real and I find it real. Being violent gives you some preferences - you get the money, the business of other people, you get the women you want and you can do whatever you want without being punished... that the movies shows and we all know that that kind of people always get away from the justice. Sad. Real. Hatred. Force. Violence. Fear. Thats the life on the bottom. And no one could help you - it is not good being a victim.

The Korean born Japanese director Yoichi Sai brings the tale of family violence to the screen, which is based on the adaptation of Yan Sogil's same title novel.

With Takeshi Kitano playing the leading patriarch Kim Joong Pyong, the story begins in Osaka, Japan in 1923. Kim, a native Korean who left Cheju Island from Korea, reaches Osaka, hoping to find a better life.

When harsh reality makes his dream a far cry from where he stands, he resorts to violence and stubbornness to achieve his goal. He rapes Yong Hee (Masai Suzuki), another Korean immigrant, and they get married, and have a son named Masao, and a daughter named Hanako. He opens a fishcake factory and abuses his workers in long hour work, together with his barbaric behavior, which is an idea he strongly believes in. As time goes by, he earns a fortune, which makes him creating the second path of wealth: loan shark. At an extremely high interest and hard pressures on anyone who borrows from him, he was left with nothing but money and mistresses.

Years passes and his family is still under his pressure, which eventually leads to the fall of the family.

Bllood and Bones is a tale of family violence from a ruthless man who attempts to dominate what is around him. Raw and direct to your face, this is certainly not a family friendly tale on how a man repents from the sins he committed to his family.

Being a Korean immigrant in Japan, Yoichi Sai knows best on the facts of the Korean community living in Japan in the previous century, and how the first generation Korean immigrant blends their culture in the Japan society during the post Depression era and World War 2. While the film is portraying the glorious side of how the Koreans seek better life in Japan, it is not a smooth path they are taking. They are still faced with the discrimination of the Japanese as a second rate citizen, even though Japan wants Korea to join forces during World War 2.

Back home, Joon Pyong terrorizes the family thru endless violence, both physical and emotional. Workers were abused, creditors were driven to death, lust for beautiful women and endless physical relationship and abuse on the mistresses were just part of Joon Pyong's lifestyle. Yoichi Sai is not reaping the seed of fear in the audience, creating a negative impression. More rather, these are the bare naked facts that happens around us, even till today. The harsh environment in a developing country makes Joon Pyong's behavior, unfortunately, a norm to him.

As the title says, Blood and Bones. No blood were seen, no bones were broken. Instead, it's the emotion that bleeds and breaks into pieces, which can be explained by the downfall of the Kim family. And Takeshi Kitano's performances makes everyone bleed and left broken.

Blood and Bones is not a feel good movie of any kind. It makes you want to stop more people from bleeding, and breaking into pieces.

Yoichi Sai's long film is about a Korean immigrant (to Japan), played by Takeshi Kitano, who cares about nothing but his own pleasure and gain. His destructive personality and violent temper decimate everything and everyone around him. Based on a true story, the script does not attempt to explain or justify Kitano's character. It presents him without judgment.

The rapes and beatings (mostly of family members) are relentless and occasionally surreal. One brutal exchange between father and son takes place during a rainstorm and is visually arresting. Another sequence, where father and son respectively destroy each other's homes, has a dark, humorous edge.

The director chooses his shots carefully and recreates the periods in which the film is set (circa 1923 to the mid-80's) effectively but never ostentatiously.

Although there is much repetition, the film does serve up a smörgåsbord of atrocities for exploitation fans. The treatment of women is harsh. One beating, in particular, of a young woman by her coarse husband, is strong stuff indeed and flawlessly conveys the cycle of violence a perpetrator creates within his own circle and extended family.

Clearly given a generous budget and clearly a labor of love, BLOOD AND BONES is well worth seeing and should not be forgotten.

Kitano is extraordinary.

Blood and Bone might as well be called 'Once Upon A Time In Japan' for the strong resemblance it bears to Sergio Leone's epic account of the immigrant experience in post-war America. The immigrants in Yoichi Sai's unrelentingly violent film are Korean, displaced there after the Japanese occupation, the country and any national identity further destabilised after Japan's defeat in the war. Arriving in Osaka in 1923, Kim Shunpei is determined to make a better life for himself, and when he returns from the war sets up a fish-cake factory, expanding later into the loan shark business. His explosively violent temperament however means that he leaves behind him a trail of death and destruction that doesn't even spare his family.

Well-known for violence in his own gangster movies, 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano takes brutality to monstrous proportions in a performance of remarkable and terrifying intensity, but you could tire very quickly of him punching women in a yet another appalling rampage. In some ways however Kitano is just too big a personality, even for such an epic film, overshadowing any finer points it might have made about the Korean-Japanese experience.

This is the tale of Joon-pyong Kim, who immigrates to Osaka from Korea as a teenager in the 1920's. The film flashes about 10-15 years forward and it turns he's a horrendous wife beater with a successful fish cake business. This film reminded me a little of Scarface: replace gang violence with the domestic variety and cocaine with fishcakes.

As in Scarface, the main character is devoid of compassion, mean, violent and you loathe him. In this respect the film succeeds with a very good performance by Kitano.

Where it fell short for me is Joon-pyong's life is kind of uninteresting. I liked the idea of a true story of a Korean immigrant trying to make it in Japanese society, through two wars and with all the racial strife.. but this theme was really a side bar to the depressing and unrelenting abuse Joon-pyong's family endures.

The film does succeed in demonstrating cycles of domestic violence and how a man can be successful in business and yet have a totally failed family life. But I think this theme was firmly established 1/2 hour into the film, and the film continues in that vein, not really introducing any highs or lows or change, in the next two hours.

The film has some good components but as another review said, there's nothing here to really cheer about.