Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Usamah Harvey The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

nmegahey Blood and Bone might as well be called 'Once Upon A Time In Japan' for the strong resemblance it bears to Sergio Leone's epic account of the immigrant experience in post-war America. The immigrants in Yoichi Sai's unrelentingly violent film are Korean, displaced there after the Japanese occupation, the country and any national identity further destabilised after Japan's defeat in the war. Arriving in Osaka in 1923, Kim Shunpei is determined to make a better life for himself, and when he returns from the war sets up a fish-cake factory, expanding later into the loan shark business. His explosively violent temperament however means that he leaves behind him a trail of death and destruction that doesn't even spare his family.Well-known for violence in his own gangster movies, 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano takes brutality to monstrous proportions in a performance of remarkable and terrifying intensity, but you could tire very quickly of him punching women in a yet another appalling rampage. In some ways however Kitano is just too big a personality, even for such an epic film, overshadowing any finer points it might have made about the Korean-Japanese experience.

eddy_schneider This great movie is not just a study of domestic violence. It's much more than that. It's a historical document of the life in Japan roughly from WWII to the 1970'. It shows the life of Korean immigrants in Japan, the constant latent hostility between the Japanese and the Koreans, the difficulty to have a reasonable life in Japan during that time, the way of life in Japan for the "simple folk", the strong hierarchy in the family and in business, and many more aspects. This movie is not entertaining as such and is certainly not fun to watch, it's brutal and often makes you sick. But you can learn more about domestic violence and about the Japanese way of life than in any other way. The script and the actors are great and everything is not just authentic but REAL. So you should not watch this movie for fun but because the subjects are so very important and because you will learn so much – even if you know Japan quite well already.

Simon Booth The narrator tells us the story of his father, a Korean who emigrates to Japan as a young man in the 1930's-ish. There, he turns out to be quite the bastard - selfish, violent, abusive and miserly. He gets married and has a few kids, then runs off with another woman and all the while inflicts suffering on everyone around him. Until he dies.Why is he such a bastard? We are never offered an explanation... too many X chromosomes? (or Y, whatever). Is he going to learn, change or grow? Nope. Is his son going to rise up against him and break free from his bad dad? Not really. Will he learn to love his dad despite his flaws, because a rotten father is still a father? Doesn't appear to.The film is quite compelling for most of the first 90 minutes, in a cheerless sort of way, but there's still most of an hour left by then... and the film doesn't really go anywhere. The years pass by and people only become more passive in their misery until age, disease or their own hand puts an end to it. Nobody seems to learn anything, nothing is accomplished and there's no obvious lesson about life to be gleaned from the 2.5 hours of glacially paced misery. What is the point? No idea.Perhaps it's just to see Takeshi Kitano at various stages of advancing age, under the hands of the makeup team. Moderately interesting, but the makeup only sometimes looks convincing... and different members of the cast seem to age at inconsistent rates (in sudden bursts, usually).There could have been a good film here, and the first half pretty much is... but it fritters away the good will it had earned in the remaining time and definitely runs longer than it should, leaving a broadly negative impression when the credits roll.

DICK STEEL I'd watch Blood and Bones for one reason, and that's for 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano. Local audiences will probably remember him in recent roles from Battle Royale, Brother, and Zatoichi. Here, he plays Jyombion Kim, one of the early pioneer Koreans who emigrated to Japan.From the start, the narration tells us the story of this one man and his life, from a teenager, until his deathbed. And he's a violent man at that, always with a drink in hand, which brings out the worst in him. If he wants to copulate, he makes sure he does. If he wants to whack the living daylights out of a person, or family member, he does too. He's Mr Domestic Violence personified, with cruel beatings to get his way. From opening a fishcake business, to loan-sharking, his aloof, and philandering ways created his extended dysfunctional family, their trials and tribulations. He is an independent, wandering soul, and will probably provide for an interesting character study.Besides the nice cinematography, the beautiful soundtrack is probably what made it easy to go through this excruciating slow paced movie. If you're not careful, you might nod off at time. The material might be uncomfortable for some; though there was violence, there isn't much gore.Weaved throughout the show at various points, is the look into the treatment of these Korean immigrants in Japan, the discrimination and difficulties faced in living in another's homogeneous society. There are many characters in the movie - sons, daughters, in-laws, half-siblings, wives, mistresses, that you'll probably be able to create a neat family tree if you link all of them on paper. But don't expect too much story on the ensemble of characters, most of them get their focus at various points, then are quietly dispatched to the background.It's an awfully sad tale, nothing in it that will make you cheer. But there is something to cheer about the movie though, and that it is shown here uncut and unedited. Meaning you get to see it as it was intended, including male genitalia.