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Davis, Darrell William.
Reigniting Japanese Tradition with Hana-Bi
Cinema Journal - 40, Number 4, Summer 2001, pp. 55-80

University of Texas Press

Darrell William Davis - Reigniting Japanese Tradition with Hana-Bi - Cinema Journal 40:4 Cinema Journal 40.4 (2001) 55-80 Reigniting Japanese Tradition with Hana-Bi Darrell William Davis [Figures] Abstract: This article interrogates Kitano "Beat" Takeshi's Hana-Bi (Fireworks, 1997) for its appropriation of traditional Japanese iconography and its insertion into a global marketplace for Asian auteur-gangster films. For Western critics, Kitano "Beat" Takeshi is the greatest filmmaker to come out of Japan since Akira Kurosawa -- to "come out," that is, into the international Euro-American art-cinema market. Years before his triumph at the 1997 Venice film festival, European and American critics praised Kitano for his contemplative treatments of violence, youth, and repression. In England, he was compared with Bresson, Melville, Scorsese, and Ozu. The BBC included Sonatine (1993) on its list of the one hundred most representative films of world cinema (Fig. 1). Critics at the Village Voice named Hana-Bi (Fireworks, 1997) one of the top ten films of the decade. Does all this acclaim have anything to do with Kitano's refusal to portray Asian stereotypes? Are Western critics tired of Asian exoticism and rewarding Kitano accordingly? Or is he just telling us what we want to hear? As the director himself put it: I feel like when anybody calls me an "Asian director" it's loaded with preconceptions. . . . I would really like to get rid of the typical Asian traits,...