Review of Gonin

Introduction

Gonin is one of the first discs from MIA`s new Tokyo Bullet range designed to showcase the best Japanese action films from recent years.

Featuring a mixture of violence, knives, blood, guts, gangs, torture, seedy locations, flashbacks, revenge, ex-cops and ex-cons, it`s a kind of Japanese Tarantino film. The plot is briefly outlined above and I don`t need to go into much more detail than that.

Video

The PR for the disc promised an anamorphic transfer, but I`m afraid we get another non-anamorphic 1.78:1 transfer from MIA. It does look rather washed out at times, and blacks aren`t very black, but at least it is mostly free of dust and dirt.

A real shame overall, as there are some nice scenes throughout the film which would have been enhanced by a better transfer.

Another problem is subtitles - you can select what type of TV you`re watching them on (4:3 or 16:9) and they`re supposed to be positioned correctly. But even when you make your choice, they sometimes spill out of frame, chopping off bits of words or even whole words. A poor effort indeed.

Audio

A DD2.0 stereo soundtrack in the original Japanese. It`s not very exciting, and at times not always perfectly audible, but that`s perhaps less of a problem unless you speak Japanese and can understand it. There are some gun battles and other scenes that would have enjoyed a remixed soundtrack that used more channels but sadly we just get stereo.

Watch out for a menacing orchestral score at times, and also something that sounds like the Blackadder theme.

Features

Not a lot here - trailers for the film and for other DVDs in the Tokyo Bullet range (all without subtitles!) You`ll also find biographies and a gallery. Uninspiring and it deserved more perhaps.

Conclusion

I quite enjoyed the film but I really didn`t enjoy the disk. You have to watch carefully and pay attention to get into the film (not helped by the subtitles being obscured at times) but in the end it`s a reasonable tale of gangs and gangsters with plenty of violence. There are some surreal moments too. If you like Japanese action cinema you should enjoy this, and if you like films about gangs and gangland killings you`ll enjoy it too.

However, the disc is just not good enough. A non-anamorphic transfer (largely dirt-free, but often washed out), an average stereo soundtrack, subtitles that sometimes get chopped off and a lack of quality extras all add up to a below average disc. One for rental only I`m afraid.