Search - GONIN on DVD

Gonin, Japan's "Reservoir Dogs"

william b stanton | Orem, Utah United States | 03/13/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Easily in my top 10 list of all time favorite movies. Along the lines of Reservoir Dogs, there is a team of 5 (Gonin translates to "5 People") who steal a grip of money from a yakuza office at gunpoint. Although they get away, the yakuza find out who did it and hire a hitman to try and kill them all, Beat Takeshi.
Beat Takeshi is one of my favorites and have seen most of his movies after the Beats, never seen a Beat yet. He is kind of like Japan's DeNero, and he made this film work. My favorite line out of the movie is where Beat shots a few rounds from his .38 missing his target, and hitting some other people, chases the mark and fires his 6th round again missing, hands the gun to his partner and says "Dame da, kono teppo" (this gun is useless) as if it couldn't be his aim (the subtitle says "It's useless" losing the meaning to think they are just giving up chasing him). Another classic Takeshi scene is where he goes out into the pouring rain to shoot 2 of the 5 wearing just some house slippers and holding an umbrela too small to cover himself. TRIVIA: The patch on Takeshi's eye is real, recieved during an accident causing permanant damage.
There are times when this movie dips a little heavy into the artistry aspect of movie making, and only a few times, so it seems like the director made some mistakes, but he was just trying to cause a certain mood, which he does effectively. This is a very violent movie, and quite disturbing for even hardened action movie watchers, but if you are in the market for a good story and better fimography, this is one to keep."

Gonin

C. James | United States | 07/11/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"An odd and unusual film to say the least... But a good one nonetheless. Some people will likely be turned off by this film due to the violence, and the surreal & gloomy feel which rarely lets up. I happen to like that sort of thing, so it worked out pretty well for me. This film actually reminded me a lot of David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (vise versa actually), with their great film noir like feel. Reading some of the other reviews, I saw that a few people said they were turned off by the 'homoerotic nature' of the film. The movie has a few 'not-so-straight' (Amazon won't let me use the G-word :) characters (including Takeshi, who is excellent!), but it's nothing I would label as 'homoerotic'. I'm as straight as they get and the film didn't bother me any... It's nothing anyone hasn't seen before in Pulp Fiction or The Crying Game. Anyway, Gonin is a great film which I do recommend... Though some of you may want to rent it first :)."