Black Rain (1989)

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another 80s action thriller that i love and admire, in an era so focused on superhero cgi films, i wish we could be back to the 1980s to have these kinds of movies, like black rain, i love micheal douglas in anything: it was so funny when he says to the officers: i d like to get kissed before i get ****ed lol
this film is typically a 80s cop thriller which this time heads east, to the land where the sun rises, osaka japan, a place i would love to visit after visiting tokyo 3 years ago, i love the setting
micheal douglas is that his best here, portraying a trashy cop working the streets, andy garcia is great as a sidekick buddy cop with his contrasting variant of stylish wearing cop enforcer.
i love the fact that they made micheal use a motor bike as vehicle, for me there is absolute rewatchability to this.
ridley scott gives us a nice cop thriller here, and a very good score is added to this film.
love me some 80s action thriller, and this one fits the bill indeed



I believe this is a real gem. One of the best portrayals of Yakuza put to film. First think Thing that comes to mind is when bad guy cuts off his finger.



All good people are asleep and dreaming.
What a piece of crap! And unfortunately a terrific film by Shohei Imamura called Black Rain (Kuroi ame) was released that same year.



The video is disturbing



Welcome to the human race...
Yeah, the Scott movie is pretty average but not without a certain charm. The Imamura movie is great, albeit completely different in just about every way except for the fact that it also takes place somewhere in Japan.



Yeah, the Scott movie is pretty average but not without a certain charm. The Imamura movie is great, albeit completely different in just about every way except for the fact that it also takes place somewhere in Japan.
This movie is better than any cop thriller being produced today and still hold a 6.9/10



You can't win an argument just by being right!
I believe this is a real gem. One of the best portrayals of Yakuza put to film. First think Thing that comes to mind is when bad guy cuts off his finger.
Yes I have to agree. I saw this shortly (a couple of years I guess) before going to Japan to live then watched it after 12 months and preparing to leave.wow! So clever how they show elements of the culture that really piss of westerners about Japan and the Japanese! It curled my hair on that second viewing. And the filmmakers only touched a tiny hair of culture.

Fabulous movie IMO.



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
[spoilers="SPOILER"]I watched it, but felt that the characters had such flat chemistry, and the plot just seemed so generic. The movie hardly has anything to say about the Yakuza, other than that they are pretty much just your generic movie gangsters we have seen time and time before it seems.

I also feel that the politics are over the top, when they talk about how America is responsible for creating the gangsters the way they are, because of the atomic bomb droppings, which seemed to kind of come out of nowhere, and I think Japan would have had dangerous criminals regardless if that happened or not, unless I am wrong.

Plus they never really explain why Douglas's character wants the gangster so bad. When the Japanese want him first, he literally has a fit over it. I mean all the guy did was kill a couple of druglords and Douglas really wants to be a boyscout about it, and even in Japan he says he will not leave until he is caught. Why? Just leave, it's their problem.

WARNING: "spoiler" spoilers below
He acts like this before his partner is killed. If they want him to act like this from the get go, then it would have made more sense for his partner to be killed earlier on, perhaps even in New York by the villain, than waiting so long.


What do you think?



I mean to be fair to it the film is rather more even handed than most "American abroad" action thrillers in that Douglas's character is actually corrupt although ultimately it does end up being "my way is right" and indeed a sense that the domestic characters are a good deal more interesting.

Better looking than the average thriller its true but still its a bit depressing to see the man who made Blade Runner at the start of the decade making something like this by the end of it.



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There is a quote from a post that doesn't seem there any longer. From ironpony?

I watched it, but felt that the characters had such flat chemistry, and the plot just seemed so generic. The movie hardly has anything to say about the Yakuza, other than that they are pretty much just your generic movie gangsters we have seen time and time before it seems.
Yeah, I agree on this part. It's not bad per se, but it would have made a much better movie if they had more than 2 dimensional "Yakuza are psychotically bad" in it. The head of the Yakuza touched on it, but not enough of the main antagonist and followers. Something less linear, showing the individual characters with whatever "good" might be inside them would have helped (IMO).

I remember a discussion long ago about how one of the producers of the HBO series "Six Feet Under" would send scripts back for reworking with the complaint of "Too linear!" He had designed it so that no bad guy would ever be without doing something good once in a while.

I harken back to when a movie might show a mass murderer donating to a fund, or leaving a big tip. (Or even in Reservoir Dogs, the argument at the lunch table about tipping the waitress with Mr. Pink).
__________________
Rules:
When women have a poet, they want a cowboy.
When they have a cowboy, they want a poet.
They'll say "I don't care if he's a poet or cowboy, so long as he's a nice guy. But oh, I'm so attracted to that bad guy over there."
Understand this last part, and you'll get them all.



Just a small correction of your review, the movie is set in Osaka not tokyo.



I really liked this film. And then, years later found out the guy who played Sato was dying during filming and never even made it to the premiere. His performance was him giving it everything because he had days left.

Now the film is one of my all time cherished greats and watching it with that knowledge makes it quite intense.



Definitely an underrated film.



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
Does anyone else find this movie comparable to Red Heat (1988). Both movies are about a cop who goes from one country around the world to the other, to partner up with another cop from that country, and there are culture clashes. Both movies are about escorting an arrested prisoner from one country to another and both movies the cop's partner
WARNING: "spoiler" spoilers below
are killed. In Red Heat both cop's partners killed
.

So I find them similar now, but didn't think of it before.



black rain is an average movie



black rain is an average movie
It s your opinion,we respect it, doesn t mean ur right



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black rain is an average movie
It s your opinion,we respect it, doesn t mean ur right
Yes it does. :-P



Yes it does. :-P
sorry, but no, i said we respect it, but it doesn t mean at all that ur right