nexxit

I only once happened to get my fingers on Kitanos movie "Brother", which got me into checking out his other movies. So i got Hana Bi since it had a lot of good reviews. I can actually understand people, that mostly watch action flicks, getting bored by this film, but for those more into poetic films, this is just the thing for you. While short on dialog, the movie is stronger on the body language of all the characters... sometimes there isn't any dialog for more than 6 minutes or so, where you just have to watch in order to understand what he is trying to tell us... For me it the movie was a bit depressing and sometimes hard to follow, but i still enjoyed it a lot. But as i said, this movie is not for everyone.... The movie is about a cop in Japan who leaves the police to spend more time with his wife who is dying of cancer, and if that was not enough to bare with, he also lost a kid and his partner gets shot and paralyzed on the job. Now he has to deal with all these tragedies at the same time... So if you want a comparison, if you liked movies like "21 grams" for example, you will love this movie!

When you have in mind, that this is only a German TV-Production, this is a decent movie. It is actually well made and The Director was even nominated for an Oscar for doing the short Movie "rote Jacke". The Story might not be the most original one, but it is quite entertaining. This is about the Templars, that are responsible of guarding the tomb of Jesus Christ and the holy grail. The holy grail is supposed to give eternal life to the one that drinks from it. The story however is focused on a boy, who doesn't know who his parents are but notices, that he is somehow special. He is much stronger than the average human and his wounds also heal pretty quick. He grew up in a monastery but he doesn't know any of his past or origin. one day when he is 18 years old, he is being kidnapped and he finds out things that he wished he never would have found out. This is where the main story begins. Some love elements as well as family drama are integrated in this adventure movie, though not always very convincing. But overall this is a quite entertaining movie, considering that this is only a TV-production. The action scenes are also done very well. overall a 7 of 10 point movie.