ONIBI: THE FIRE WITHIN (2003)
Directed by Rokuro Mochizuki
Starring: Yoshio Harada, Sho Aikawa
Genre: Yakuza
Running Time: 100mins

Rating:

After being released from prison Kunihiro (Harada) finds himself in a changed world, the code of the Yakuza has been replaced with the facade of legitimate businessmen who live only for money, not honour. Reluctantly, Kunihiro is drawn back to the world he left behind and after falling for a piano player at a nightclub finds himself embarking upon an act of revenge that threatens to cost him not only his freedom but also the lives of those around him.

Onibi: The Fire Within concerns itself with the fairly generic tale of a criminal released from prison being plunged back into society to find that everything has changed. It's the lone Yakuza returning to find that gone are the days of loyalty, honour and a sense of brotherhood - now all that exists is betrayal, deceipt and greed. Hardly an innovative story to set the world alight this is the staple of many a Yakuza movie from big studio productions right down to the V-Cinema gems, however, from the few reviews of the film that are out there I had high expectations for this. Comparisons were made calling this a meeting point between Kitano and Miike - a statement sure to whet the appetite of any fan of asian cinema.

Unfortunately, it seems that the above is rather a bold statement. Neither a subtle meditation on the inevitability of violence nor a subversion of the genre Onibi sits rather surprisingly as a mundane piece raised only slightly by a strong, enigmatic performance by the always excellent Yoshio Harada (recently seen in both 9 Souls and Azumi).

The problem with Onibi is brutally simple, it has very little to say, and very little happens. What we're left with is the premise for a decent short film that has been stretched for all it's worth to the point of being vacuous. There is little in the way of emotional involvement, with almost all of the supporting characters being born of cliché and contributing very little towards plot and character development. Sho Aikawa is criminally wasted in a role that surmounts to little more than the generic loyalty pervades all in a changed world gangster.

There are admittedly a few nice scenes in Onibi moments that threaten to ratchet up the tension and start the ball rolling to its inevitable climax, however, as soon as they arrive they almost immediately subside leaving the pacing of the film feeling particularly off. In addition, you get the feeling while watching Onibi that anything that it has to say has already been said before, and many times at that. If not by Miike or by Kitano then by Fukusaku in the 60's when the message was all the more worthwhile and better told.

Onibi is not a particularly bad movie, it's certainly watchable but yet it's also so very, very bland. Requiring from its viewer more work than is put on screen, the rewards are on the whole unsatisfying. There are opinions of this film not being simply another gangster movie and being much more than the usual fare for the Yakuza genre, but the painful fact is that Onibi is just a Yakuza movie, and to top it off, not a very good one either.