Să vezi Hana-Bi după ce ai văzut şi filmele de dinainte ale lui Kitano e ca şi cum ai ieşi la o bere cu un prieten vechi: ştii la ce să te aştepţi şi te bucuri de regăsire.
Şi chiar dacă uneori intuieşti cum vine următoarea poantă, tu te distrezi la fel de bine. În plus ai melancolia vremurilor împreună şi plăcerea redescoperirii afinităţilor.
Căci în Hana-Bi se află toate filmele precedente, toate procedeele şi scenele favorite ale lui Kitano.
Sunt aici: coloana sonoră a lui Hisaishi, actorii cu care ne-a obişnuit regizorul, cadrele lungi şi fixe, cadrele apropiate cu feţe de bondar (fără expresie), editarea eliptică şi neliniară, exploziile scurte de violenţă, marea, Yakuza, baseball-ul, absurdul, tandreţea, umorul special al lui Kitano ...
Nu vă veţi plictisi însă, povestea e nouă şi e spusă altfel – stilul s-a mai cizelat, e mai puţin abrupt, procedeele tehnice se suprapun mai bine, construcţia e mai organică.
Printre noutăţi: desenele, picturile şi atenţia pentru culoare. Căci Takeshi Kitano s-a apucat de pictură după accidentul de motocicletă.
În film, Nishi (Beat Takeshi) şi Horibe (Ren Ôsugi) sunt poliţişti, parteneri. Horibe este împuşcat şi rămâne paralizat de la mijloc în jos, va trebui să se retragă din activitate. Părăsit şi de soţie, acesta încearcă să se sinucidă. Pentru a-l ajuta să depăşească momentul critic, Nishi îi face cadou un set pentru pictură. Horibe va învăţa mai întâi să privească lucrurile, apoi să le deseneze. Picturile şi desenele sale îşi fac loc uşor-uşor în film şi ajung să se confunde cu atmosfera, uneori chiar definind anumite momente. Sunt de fapt desenele regizorului pe care acesta le-a făcut după accidentul de motocicletă din 1994 - figurative, apropiate artei naive, în culori tari. Tot ale lui Kitano sunt şi tablourile ce apar în film pe culoarele spitalului, în baruri sau în alte locuri. De urmărit şi apreciat cum reuşeşte Kitano să introducă în film aceste desene.
Rep.: [...] you told me that after the accident, you began to experience color much more vividly. The scene where Horibe first encounters color at the florist - I imagine that this cop had lived completely indifferent to colors until that very moment and right then he realizes for the first time that he was surrounded by all this color. Did you have a moment after the accident when you experienced this?
T. Kitano: "It was flowers for me too. I had the bike accident and my head hit the pavement and
I was destroyed … I was walking around with my bandaged eye, because I had
nothing better to do, and I came to a florist where I began staring at the
flowers. Then I realized that they were each so different from the other and I
was really struck by it. I thought maybe I should paint them. I wondered how I
could do it, when the idea of arranging them into something else came to mind.
Looking at a sunflower I thought it looked like a lion. This idea made me so
happy. So I painted the lion with the sunflower head. I had that painting way
before I started shooting the film. And then one looked like a deer, another
leaf looked like a penguin. They would keep coming to me. It was really
instantaneous. I wanted to show that this guy in the film, Horibe doesn’t know
where he’s heading but is somehow drawn to the florist and ends up there. He
suddenly wants to paint so badly and he is so happy to have discovered this new
thing, he buys a bunch of flowers and the images keep coming to him." (Interviu
Takeshi Kitano – Makoto Shinozaki, Studio Voice Magazine)
Hana-Bi marchează un moment de maturitate în evoluţia de
până acum 
a regizorului. În urma experienţei artistice, dar şi de viaţă, Kitano
este, la timpul acestui film, un artist stăpân şi sigur pe mijloacele proprii.
Rep.: [...]I really find the charm of your film to be more in the way your own life experiences are reflected in your films … Of course, it doesn’t necessarily mean the character is the director. Filmmaking isn’t that simple … But after watching this film, the thought crossed my mind was that perhaps in Hana-Bi, you consider the various possibilities of what might have happened to you after the accident and project them onto the two characters, Nishi and Horibe.
T. Kitano: Well, I feel like I’m found out. It puts me in a slightly defensive position. Horibe is obviously an image of myself after the accident. You know, I was the king of prime time. Then the motorbike accident happened and some people left me. It made me realize that some people obviously didn’t really care about me. So I thought “Maybe I’ll take up painting.â€
On the other hand, there was also that incident where we raided the publishing company. I thought that was the end of me. I really thought I was done for in society. I was lucky to have been able to come back to television after that. But I did it for a woman, you know. I felt I did what I had to do to prove my love for her. That was reflected in Nishi.
The friendship and strong bond between Nishi and Horibe is a reflection of my relationship with my troupe.
I guess little bits of my essence end up in the films and in the characters. So I don’t want to say it too loud, but I think it’s inevitable.
Hana-bi câştigă Golden Lion la festivalul de film de la Veneţia (1997). A fost o alegere populară: publicul, criticii, presa, juriul au plăcut filmul. Şi Kitano a fost destul de mulţumit de reuşita sa, declarând la întoarcerea acasă: "I am the master!"
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