--- title: "Fireworks: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/fireworks/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/fireworks" critics_score: 84 critics_reviews: 9 licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Fireworks (1997): what the critics said Critics' score 84 from 9 reviews: 9 positive, 0 mixed, 0 negative. The reviews are unanimous in their praise and unusually consistent about why. Nearly every critic describes the same thing: long stretches of stillness broken by sudden, brutal violence, with deadpan humour running underneath. The praise clusters on Kitano himself, as director and as the taciturn lead, and on the way his own paintings are worked into the story of a former detective caring for a dying wife. Several also single out the composition, the melancholic score and the elliptical structure. The spread is narrow and nobody dislikes it; the differences are of temperature. The most enthusiastic reviews treat it as a significant step forward for Kitano. The cooler ones, from the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, admire the originality and the sparing use of violence but stop short of the rapture found elsewhere. Slant Magazine is alone in naming sentimentality, particularly in the scenes with the wife, though it counts this as part of the design rather than a fault. ## Empire — David Parkinson Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 1 January 2000. The critic praises Kitano's personal meditation on love, violence, grief and loss as moving and edgy, highlighting its cinematic use of space, stillness and the director's own performance and paintings. [Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/hana-bi-review/) ## The Guardian Rating ********. 24 September 1999. The critic praises Kitano's reflective mode in this extraordinary film blending stillness with bursts of violence and deadpan humour, noting his mastery of style, tenderness without sentimentality, and careful composition and landscape use. [Read the review](https://www.theguardian.com/film/1999/sep/24/dvdreviews.reviews) ## The New Yorker — Anthony Lane Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 23 March 1998. Kitano's film mixes deadpan physical comedy and swift savagery with a tender study of marriage and loss as the protagonist cares for his dying wife and seeks redemption. Lane praises its elliptical structure, visual invention, and emotional depth as a major advance. [Read the review](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1998/03/30/love-and-death-2) ## Time Out — GA Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 8 January 2016. Kitano's Venice prize-winner mixes tenderness, violence and droll humour in an assured, imaginative story of a retired cop turning to crime for his terminally ill wife and a crippled colleague. The critic praises the sudden brutal violence in the editing, the resonant use of Kitano's own paintings, sharp mise-en-scène and the actor-director's taciturn yet expressive performance. [Read the review](https://www.timeout.com/movies/hana-bi) ## Total Film Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 24 July 1998. The review describes the film as a lyrical and elegiac piece of cinema, noting its blend of violence, absurdity and tenderness along with exquisite visuals and melancholic score. [Read the review](https://www.gamesradar.com/hana-bi-review/) ## Variety Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 14 September 1997. Festival review. Kitano delivers a poignant reflection on love, violence, grief, and loss through the story of a detective balancing yakuza debts, his partner's injury, and his wife's terminal illness. The review praises the masterful balance of tenderness and violence along with its visual storytelling and soulful conclusion. [Read the review](https://variety.com/1997/film/reviews/hana-bi-1117329531/) ## Slant Magazine — Jaime N. Christley Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 7 July 2004. The critic highlights how the film mixes sudden brutality with unexpected tenderness and sentimentality, particularly in scenes involving the hero's ailing wife and his own paintings. Kitano uses these juxtapositions to create a new template for his work that balances genre violence with emotional and artistic depth. [Read the review](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/fireworks/) ## Los Angeles Times — Kenneth Turan Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 20 March 1998. The film fuses disparate elements of violence, comedy, and sentiment into an original whole through its unconventional structure and Kitano's multifaceted performance. Turan singles out its bracing originality and the way violence is deployed unexpectedly and sparingly. [Read the review](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-mar-20-ca-30677-story.html) ## The New York Times — Janet Maslin Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 27 September 1997. Festival review. The film balances brutal violence with tender moments as a hard-boiled cop cares for his dying wife amid personal and criminal troubles. Maslin highlights the director's dual talents for fierce action and gentle storytelling in this festival screening. [Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/27/movies/film-festival-review-a-hard-boiled-detective-who-has-a-tender-side.html) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/fireworks.md