Made in 2004, Blood and Bones has recently been released on DVD. It stars Japanese movie legend Takeshi Kitano.

The story begins in the 1920's with Shunpei (Kitano) arriving in Japan by boat with the first generation of Korean immigrants.

The story quickly moves forward to when Shunpei is middle aged and has a family. Shunpei is a violent man who comes and goes as he pleases. He also dishes out a great deal of punishment on his family and numerous mistresses. In fact Shunpei makes Jake La Motta look like a metro sexual.

We get an indication early on that Shunpei is a piece of work, when he takes a sledge hammer to his rented house (without the landlord’s permission) and converts it into a fish cake factory. The business is quite lucrative for awhile, but eventually closes when Shunpei has trouble finding people willing to work for him because of his abusive management style. So Shunpei turns his hand to loan sharking and does very well at that. At times there are signs of redemption for him, but they’re all too fleeting and before long he finds himself back on his path of self destruction, which we the audience get to follow until the bitter end.

Whilst Shunpei, may not be a very likeable character, he is fascinating and if nothing else I couldn't help but admire his tenacity.

Some people may find this movie harrowing, disturbing and perhaps even depressing, but I like movies with a bit of grunt, so I was totally enthralled by this epic tale about a classic anti-hero.

In closing, I'll just say I was a big Takeshi Kitano fan before I saw this and I’m an even bigger one now. This definitely rates as one of his best films and I'd rate it along side Oldboy as one of the best films I've seen this year.