10 Gangster Movies That Mess With Your Brain
8. Sonatine (1993)
While the US has produced scores of films dedicated to the supposed activities of the Mafia, Japan has an even longer tradition of creating movies that feature the Japanese equivalent: the Yakuza, with just as long a tradition of specific imagery and symbolism relating to the subgenre. Written and directed by the celebrated auteur Takeshi Kitano, Sonatine is an elegiac, existential and off-kilter film.
Kitano also stars as the world-weary Murakawa, a Yakuza enforcer who is sent on a job that appears to be pointless, only to be ambushed and to have his men shot at. Fleeing the scene and regrouping at a beach house, the survivors of the hit team agree to lay low and wait for the trouble to blow over. Engaging in silly games to mark the time, the men of violence find that even these aimless distractions are coloured by elements of the violent lives they've left behind.
A kind of peaceful contemplation descends upon the group: but, eventually, those violent lives come to find them again, and Murakawa determines to find the bosses responsible for their betrayal and end the issue between them once and for all.
Beautifully shot and framed and hauntingly evocative, Sonatine is all the more remarkable considering that Beat Takeshi was mostly known for being one of Japans top three television comedians when he made the film: it's the equivalent of Blackadder's Rowan Atkinson writing and directing Nil By Mouth.