Sonatine (1993) - Takeshi Kitano

Aniki Murakawa, a long-time member of the Yakuza, has recently been sent to Okinawa by his boss in an effort to help settle a dispute between two rival gangs.  Murakawa is a man who has begun to grow tired of his gangster lifestyle, even considering retirement, though he reluctantly accepts the job after being assured of its relative ease.  The mission ends up being anything but, as a bloody conflict erupts under somewhat mysterious circumstances forcing Murakawa and his men to retreat to a secluded beach-side home in order to gather information.  As time passes it becomes more and more clear that Murakawa was indeed set up by his superiors, in an effort to take control of Murakawa's lucrative territory.  Takeshi Kitano's Sonatine is one of the more meditative studies on the Yakuza lifestyle, using Takeshi Kitano's cold gaze to capture the heart-hardening profession that slowly wears its subjects downs.  In Sonatine, the Yakuza lifestyle isn't presented in a flashy, exuberant way, as the film instead feels far more focused on the quiet moments of boredom and isolation that make up much more of Yakuza man's lifestyle.  Sonatine really captures how Murakawa, an enforcer, is basically the slave to his superiors, unwilling to have his own identity in the criminal underworld, being merely a vessel for the yakuza bosses wishes.  When Murakawa and his men arrive on the beach the film takes a idyllic turn, with Murakawa striking up some semblance of a relationship with a local girl who he saves from being sexually assaulted by one of his men.  For me, Sonatine is a film about a man inability to capture his own independence and freedom from the Yakuza world.  Completely disenchanted from the thrill of violence, Murakawa begins to see the pointless repetition of this lifestyle, with the young local girl offering him some semblance of a normal life.  Not to be confused with a redemption story, Sonatine captures a man whose always served a master, with the bloody finale and finale sequence being very symbolic of a Samurai's practice of Harakari.

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