Reception
Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 93% of 27 professional critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 7.7 out of 10.[7] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 73 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[8]
Roger Ebert, who gave the film three and a half out of four stars, said it shows that gangster films do not need to have "stupid dialogue, nonstop action and gratuitous gore" and that it reminded him of Le Samouraï.[9] The Guardian's Rob Mackie called it "a largely peaceful, contemplative work, punctuated by moments of extreme violence" and gave it four out of five stars.[10] Scott Tobias of The A.V. Club summed the movie up as "a fresh take on the age-old yakuza genre that's infused by odd flourishes of style and playfulness, and jarring outbursts of humor and violence."[11] Complex named Sonatine second on their list of The 25 Best Yakuza Movies, behind only Battles Without Honor and Humanity.[12] Jasper Sharp, writing for the British Film Institute, listed it as one of the ten great Japanese gangster movies.[13]
Sonatine was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival.[14] French publisher and notorious movie-goer, Jean-Pierre Dionnet (Canal +/Studio Canal), reported in an interview, that someone convinced Alain Delon to watch Sonatine arguing that Kitano was a fan of Le Samouraï. Delon was taken aback, and talking about Kitano's acting, said: "What's THAT? [...], this is not an actor [...], he only has three facial expressions and he almost doesn't talk on top of this." Most professionals around Dionnet had the same reaction, but the French publisher was both struck and puzzled by this new genre. He contacted the Japanese distributor in order to buy the license for Sonatine, but his request was rejected. Dionnet had to insist for several months to finally discover that Shochiku didn't want to release Sonatine abroad, claiming the film was "too Japanese" and would not be accepted, nor understood, by western audiences. Eventually Dionnet learned that the distributor didn't want to release the license because of its commercial failure in Japan. Dionnet had an agreement with Shochiku arguing that French audiences did not know Kitano's career and would accept his violent character more easily. He bought Sonatine and three additional Kitano films, Violent Cop, Boiling Point and the latest, Kids Return. With the exception of Kids Return, all had performed poorly in Japan. In 1995, Sonatine entered the 13th Festival du Film Policier de Cognac in France, where it was critically acclaimed. Sonatine, followed by the three other films were broadcast on the French channel Canal+ a few months later.[15]
As soon as 1995, Takeshi Kitano played the role of a yakuza in American director Robert Longo's cyberpunk thriller, Johnny Mnemonic. In North America, Sonatine was released in theaters in April 1998 and Quentin Tarantino released a subtitled video edition in 2000 as part of his Rolling Thunder Pictures collection. The same year, Kitano was convinced by his producer to go to the United States, where he filmed his first (and last) film outside Japan. Brother was shot in Los Angeles with an American crew and local actors, including Omar Epps. In an interview, Kitano admitted he was not fully satisfied with the final result of Brother and that he regretted his "Hollywood" adventure which was supposed to bring him a broader audience with a higher exposure. Kitano confessed he had no intention of shooting outside Japan any more.[16]
