Boiling Point (1990 film)

Plot outline

Ono Masahiko stars as a shiftless, inattentive young man, a member of a losing local baseball team, whose coach is threatened and attacked by a local yakuza. He teams up with a friend to go to Okinawa to purchase guns so they can get revenge. Kitano plays a psychotic yakuza member named Uehara, who befriends them upon their arrival in Okinawa. Uehara has his own agenda of revenge, and as the story progresses the two boys drift further into his orbit, with unsettling results.

Cast

Production

Kitano's trademark black humor suffuses the film in many ways: at one point, the boy finally does get a gun, but shoots out the windshield of his girlfriend's car by mistake. The film also features comedian Iizuka Minoru, also known as Dankan, who went on to become a Kitano regular (Getting Any?) and Katsuo Tokashiki, who is famous for his kickboxing skills in Japan. He also played a guard in Takeshi Kitano's Takeshi's Castle in the 1980s.

The original title, 3-4X Jugatsu, is the final score of a baseball game played in the film. "Jugatsu" (October) was added to the title, because the most exciting games of baseball, play-off games, are played in October.