Chi to hone

I'd watch Blood and Bones for one reason, and that's for 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano. Local audiences will probably remember him in recent roles from Battle Royale, Brother, and Zatoichi. Here, he plays Jyombion Kim, one of the early pioneer Koreans who emigrated to Japan.

From the start, the narration tells us the story of this one man and his life, from a teenager, until his deathbed. And he's a violent man at that, always with a drink in hand, which brings out the worst in him. If he wants to copulate, he makes sure he does. If he wants to whack the living daylights out of a person, or family member, he does too. He's Mr Domestic Violence personified, with cruel beatings to get his way. From opening a fishcake business, to loan-sharking, his aloof, and philandering ways created his extended dysfunctional family, their trials and tribulations. He is an independent, wandering soul, and will probably provide for an interesting character study.

Besides the nice cinematography, the beautiful soundtrack is probably what made it easy to go through this excruciating slow paced movie. If you're not careful, you might nod off at time. The material might be uncomfortable for some; though there was violence, there isn't much gore.

Weaved throughout the show at various points, is the look into the treatment of these Korean immigrants in Japan, the discrimination and difficulties faced in living in another's homogeneous society. There are many characters in the movie - sons, daughters, in-laws, half-siblings, wives, mistresses, that you'll probably be able to create a neat family tree if you link all of them on paper. But don't expect too much story on the ensemble of characters, most of them get their focus at various points, then are quietly dispatched to the background.

It's an awfully sad tale, nothing in it that will make you cheer. But there is something to cheer about the movie though, and that it is shown here uncut and unedited. Meaning you get to see it as it was intended, including male genitalia.

In 1923, the Korean teenager Kim Shun-Pei (Takeshi Kitano) moves from Cheju Island, in South Korea, to Osaka, in Japan. Along the years, he becomes a cruel, greedy and violent man and builds a factory of kamaboko, processed seafood products, in his poor Korean-Japanese community exploring his employees. He makes fortune, abuses and destroys the lives of his wife and family, having many mistresses and children and showing no respect to anybody. Later he closes the factory, lending the money with high interests and becoming a loan shark. His hatred behavior remains until his last breath, alone in North Korea.

"Chi to Hone" is an extremely realistic, sad and cruel movie about the life of one of the most hideous characters I have ever see. The impressive story has a fantastic direction, awesome interpretations and Takeshi Kitano is simply stunning. The scenes of rape, fight and brutality are amazingly well choreographed and real. The cinematography and art direction present a reconstitution along decades of Osaka, supported by one of the most beautiful soundtracks of the cinema. I regret only my lack of knowledge of Japanese and Korean histories for a full understanding of some historical moments showed along the years. This masterpiece is absolutely underrated in IMDb. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Consumido Pelo Ódio" ("Consumed by Hate")

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.

This movie represents the first leading role Beat Takeshi has taken in more than a decade in a movie he didn't direct. The advance reviews of his performance were enthusiastic, and his powerful depiction of the violent and controlling Kim Shunpei more than lives up to the notices. Still, the film itself is a flawed creation; unable to pack all of the critical backstory of the original best-selling book even into a 140-minute film, the director settles for presenting a series of scenes that cycle repeatedly between set-up, violent outburst, and aftermath , with little connecting tissue and almost no effort to explain how or why the main character became the dangerous 'monster' he is. With leaps of years and even decades between scenes, it's clear that many of the book's defining incidents failed to make the screenplay, and while the lead and supporting performances are almost uniformly fine, I left the theater exhausted from the violence but feeling nothing for the victims--Kim's family, neighbors and employees--of it. (It is also probable that foreign audiences, not familiar with the cultural, political, and social issues surrounding the ethnic Korean community in Japan, will have trouble appreciating the crucial nuances of language and expression, most of which are unlikely to survive the subtitling process).

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.