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Still, it seems that Takeshi Kitano (something of an entertainment polymath) remains immune to this form of pressure. In every film he ploughs a similar furrow, improving and tinkering were necessary but essentially serving up the same basic ingredients. And yet this isn't a weakness. No, so far Takeshi has improved with every film; his writing increasingly involving, his direction focused, his acting ever more fluid. Takeshi grasps where within the genre understanding lies and appears content to hone his blackly comic gangster skills to an ever-finer point. Thus we have a progression, from Violent Cop to Hana-bi, with Boiling Point being a stepping-stone from one to the other.
As such Boiling Point gazes upon the world of Japanese Yakuza, though not from the perspective of those involved. Instead the story considers how people outside the circle interact with the criminals within, all aiming to retain some measure of self-respect with the caveat that they be allowed to keep breathing. Thus Takeshi hands us Masaki (Masahiko Ono), a blank and underachieving young man who communicates through grunts and shrugs. There's so little to get excited about in Masaki's life that even his stupid slugging of a gangster barely raises an eyebrow. In fact his baseball coach Takashi Iguchi (Takahito Iguchi) is the only one who takes the incident to heart, being a retired hood himself.
A slight obstruction is that not only does Ono's character seem devoid of charisma, but that Ono himself attracts only in passing. His vacancy makes Boiling Point sluggish, even dull, damping down the script's life essence with his own exhausted embers. Maybe this is one of the century's greatest pieces of screen-craft; more likely is that Ono represents Masaki all too faithfully. Boiling Point only stirs when Takashi enters from beyond the frame, playing nasty, sexually aggressive gangster Uehara. So repellent are his actions (coercing rape, torturing lovers, embezzling from the bosses) that Uehara faces being kicked out of the local Yakuza gang. The mood is set for a meeting between disaffected Masaki and aggrieved Uehara, each adhering to a personal agenda.
Now, if this isn't unsettling enough, Takashi has a perverse trump card that'll almost certainly cause you to disconnect from Boiling Point. His story is, in execution, predominantly constructed around minor moments, interactions that tend to form bridges between scenes in other movies. It's an odd way of working because it ensures that you don't see the 'big picture', at least not from the outside in. Instead your impression must coalesce from many tiny pieces, all landing together in random fashion. Takashi doesn't seem inclined toward delivering a complete story, instead directing a fragmented pseudo-journey which frustrates to the same extent that it impresses.
At least Katsumi Yanagishima's photography is worthy of enjoyment, combining as it does smartly selected normal-life images with elongated takes of shattering violence. Boiling Point relies, to some extent, on these flash points for the brief illumination that they cast upon Takashi's characters; something hardly gained from precious little exposition. Events just kind of play themselves out, the tendency being that the movie takes on a rather surreal quality, mainly because you can't predict what's going to happen next. This is, in its entirety, a rather imperfect piece; full of experimental ideas and half-baked avenues, Boiling Point plays like a prototype rather than the real McCoy.
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