Black rain5/3/2023 They make a good duo, once Andy Garcia is helpfully removed from proceedings. His becalmed Samurai leanings have a genuine effect on Conklin, enough to pause his brute punch-‘em-and-they’ll-tell-you approach to detection and grasp something of this poised foreign culture. Thankfully, and vitally, Takakura gives a terrific turn as the deskbound detective babysitting these livewire New Yorkers. It’s a problematic gesture, as it becomes increasingly indistinct whether the film is commenting on or just joining in such prejudice - there is a daft preponderance of inscrutable Eastern glances. American’s are defined as individuals bucking the system, their Japanese equivalent systemised drones confined by tradition. Casual resentments that hover teasingly over racism pepper the film, supposedly fed by the brutish attitudes of character (Douglas’ Conklin is no saint - Internal Affairs are about to cook his ass back in the Apple). It’s Beverly Hills Cop without the jabber, but plenty of Sushi.Īway from the exuberances of its bloody violence - if the American policier makes its points with bullets, the Japanese variety is all knife edges - Scott is aiming to comment on post-war cross-cultural lack-of-relations. Douglas is the maverick kind, street-smart, out for revenge on the enemy’s turf, and lumbered with stiff-necked Ken Takakura, a buddy-up that melts from friction to mutual respect. Yet, no matter how well dressed, the movie can’t escape the gravitational pull of formula. It also centres on a typically gutsy Michael Douglas performance he was at the height of his fame, post Wall Street, an American hero with rough edges and big hair. Of course, it looks fabulous, fixing the neon-noir deco dreadscape of his masterpiece Blade Runner, into a real context - Japan’s sprawling urban civility - that feels, if anything, more exotic still. It is a standard issue fish-outta-water cop thriller, but transposed to Osaka’s glistening towers, and possesses everything that intoxicates and infuriates about the director’s predilections. The cast also included Kate Capshaw and legendary Japanese actor Ken Takakura.This is the film, above all the various throws of his aesthetic genius, that best embodies the tricky cult of Ridley Scott. He passed away seven months after the movie's American premiere. He finished the movie, telling others that sacrificing his chances at "living a few more months" was a worthy trade off for the chance to "live forever" in a motion picture. It is noteworthy that lead actor Yusaku Matsuda who played the main villain Sato, was dying of cancer, but refused to reveal the advanced stage of his disease to director Ridley Scott for fear that he would be replaced. Apparently the 'rules & regulations'-oriented Japanese system aggravated cinematographer Howard Atherton so much that he left and the remaining camera work was completed by Jan de Bont (who shot Die Hard and would later direct Speed). Making the film was not only grueling, but difficult as there were many clashes in the methods of Western film productions and Japanese film productions operated. Black Rain is a 1989 thriller directed by Ridley Scott and starring Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia as NYPD detectives who find themselves working with the police in Osaka, Japan to recapture the Yakuza boss they were transporting back and mistakenly let go.
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