Takeshi Kitano forsakes the crime genre for a deadpan road comedy about a mere reprobate (idler, gambler, brawler) who guides a small boy on a summer-vacation search for his long-lost mother. In his on-screen persona, Beat Takeshi, he is still a bit of a roughie if not a full-fledged toughie ("Quit playing gangster," his henpecking wife admonishes him), and American viewers perhaps gain a glimpse of his earlier career as a comedian. The sentimentality that was a problem even in Fireworks is now a spreading problem, but the precise, calm, detached compositions help to contain it. The new problem is that these help to contain the humor as well. (1999) — Duncan Shepherd
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