Rating: 
Summary: Good Beat Takeshi movie, but DVD is full frame
Review: I've seen many, perhaps most, of Kitano's films and enjoyed this one the most. The film works rhythmically and musically better than Firworks (hanabi) and Boiling Point (3-4 x 10gatsu), and addresses the same themes (the isolation, futility and entrapments of yakuza life and violence, the beauty of the ocean, loyalty, revenge, desperation, etc.) much more succinctly and poignantly. Particularly the second half of the film, that takes place by the ocean, is full of bittersweet humor and a beautiful simplicity, which are a nice contrast to the violence of the yakuza underworld. This film also manages to escape the nauseating sentimentality of Kikujiro, yet remain true to its poetic heart.
Rating: 
Summary: Takeshi's most bittersweet cinematic poetry
Review: I've seen many, perhaps most, of Kitano's films and enjoyed this one the most. The film works rhythmically and musically better than Firworks (hanabi) and Boiling Point (3-4 x 10gatsu), and addresses the same themes (the isolation, futility and entrapments of yakuza life and violence, the beauty of the ocean, loyalty, revenge, desperation, etc.) much more succinctly and poignantly. Particularly the second half of the film, that takes place by the ocean, is full of bittersweet humor and a beautiful simplicity, which are a nice contrast to the violence of the yakuza underworld. This film also manages to escape the nauseating sentimentality of Kikujiro, yet remain true to its poetic heart.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best movies I've ever seen.
Review: If you like comedy, you won't be dissapointed. If you like action, you won't be dissapointed. If you like gangster movies, you won't be dissapointed. If you like bad movies, you'll be dissapointed.
Rating:
Summary: entertainment for the eye and the ear
Review: Sonatine can get quite a few prizes just for the music. Even the silence matches the music. The photography is classical and the canvases are poetic. Sometimes you forget that you are watching a gang war movie rather you will feel that you are watching an extremely romantic movie. Takeshi Kitano is just an amazing actor. Cinematography and frame design is comparable Kurosawa.
Takeshi Kitano is a renegade gang leader who is trying to save his own life from his mob boss. Most of the movie is in a location where he is hiding along with 4 of his cohorts.
If you do not understand Japanese then you will miss out since it is very difficult to do correct translation of Japanese words. You get a translation but you do not get the connotations.
As a whole this is a highly exciting movie. I will not recommend
it for kids since it has too much blood and violence.
Rating: 
Summary: Sonatine
Review: Sonatine is a great film on all fronts. Quite different from many other Yakuza-genre films, Sonatine tends to take more of subtle and effecting itinerary than the more common violence blazing, action-oriented routes. This film is far from voided of any violence, but it uses it affectingly: in droves or dispersed, that's all the really matters. Takeshi Kitano is always excellent (from Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence to MXC :); he alone can make a film worth watching. He doesn't need to in this one though; an all a round outstanding film :).
Rating:
Summary: Masterpiece
Review: Sonatine is amazing, second only to Kitano's masterpiece Hana-Bi (Fireworks.)Minor comment : the original title is "Sonachine", not "Sonatine." Sonachine is an indigenous style of music of Okinawa where much of the story unfolds. Sonatine is a classical composition form. Very different vibe indeed.
Rating:
Summary: tranquil and innovative foray into familiar genre
Review: Sonatine is nothing short of how genre films can be handled creatively to reveal new truths. Beat Takeshi sets his gang of tough yakuza (Japanese for gangsters) in a beach resort, a gang of men just waiting for the inevitable from their boss who is thinking about "good riddance" back in Tokyo. A very funny and at times beautiful and lyrical film. Be prepared for the deadpan delivery of violence, a nonchalance that doesn't mean "cool" as American film violence exercises it.
Rating: 
Summary: Sonatine ranks among the worst movies I have seen.
Review: There are reputable reviewers that give Sonatine high marks for subtlety, terse dialogue, and hypnotic scenes. A better way to say it is that the characters don't say much, they sit around waiting, they walk around like sticks until they briefly shoot at each other at close range. They seem like they are in a trance and don't seem to care whether they live or die. We get to feel like the characters - totally bored. (And, I had difficulty reading the sub-titles.) I don't get it. I am on another planet from those who rave about this film. Critics must have to go to a special film school that teaches you to see magic where there is nothing. There is so little here that the film becomes whatever you wish to project onto it. This movie is close to a zero.
Rating:
Summary: Gorgeously shot, hindered by wafery plot.
Review: There's hardly any story in Sonatine. While that's no rarity in a Kitano film, Sonatine (a musical term) seems to follow the sense evoked by the title by abandoning all attempts at progressive story, concentrating instead on images of almost surreal aesthetic power, deadpan humour, and a bare script that makes the movie taciturn, neutral, and ultimately somber, counteracting the humour with loaded themes of damnation and revenge. Watch Sonatine for the visuals -- it's a visual poem that at times, based on composition, colour and angling, can challenge even a visual masterpiece like Kurosawa's Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior.
Rating:
Summary: Intelligent Gangster Flick
Review: This is one of my favorite movies because it does everything it attempts to do very, very well. As an action movie, it's fast-paced, tough and suspenseful. As a drama it's moving and thought-provoking. And, as cinema, it's well-crafted, with some really brilliant visuals. In these respects, although totally different in style, content and, of course, subject matter, it's in the tradition of Seven Samurai and other Kurosawa warrior movies. Beat Takeshi is also one of the coolest movie stars in the world. Much better on the big screen, but as it's almost impossible to find even in big city art house theaters, the video will have to do.
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