Boiling Point

Boiling Point, Takeshi Kitano's second feature film, is another masterfully-paced thriller full of unexpected humor. Masaki (Masahiko Ono), a quiet baseball-playing gas station attendant, runs into trouble with the local yakuza. After the failed attempts to calm the situation, he straightens out the confusion in the only way he thinks possible ¡V through violence. The uneasy mix of playful comedy and savage violence in this film is widely considered as a trademark in all Takeshi Kitano's crime epics. Boiling Point is a wonderfully idiosyncratic film in which Kitano developed what has later become the archetype Kitano persona ¡V the taciturn but oddly likable antihero who speaks with his fists rather than with his voice.

Director: Takeshi Kitano (Brother, Zatoichi, Sonatine)

Casting: Takeshi Kitano, Masahiko Ono, Yuriko Ishida, Iguchi Takahito, Minoru Lizuka