Blood and Bones (Chi To Hone) Review

Much has been made of Takeshi Kitano’s performance in Yoichi Sai’s Blood and Bones, an acclaimed drama following a Korean immigrant family in Japan. Taking place over a forty year span from Kim Shun-Pei’s arrival in Osaka in 1923 through to his death, Kitano essentially is the film his presence infesting every frame whether he is on camera or not. Based on the true story of author Yan Sogiru’s own family and captured on film by Toichi Sai – himself an ethnic Korean living in Japan – Kitano plays Kim as a brutish, abhorrent man, making his entrance to the film by beating and raping his wife in full view of his young daughter. Kitano’s performance is stellar, easily the standout in a film that also features Joe Odagiri and Susumu Terajima, but regardless of the strong performances, possibly even because of them, two and a half hours of continual domestic violence makes for very difficult going.