Black Rain

Also, was haben wir denn hier? Den ersten Film von Michael Douglas seit Wall Street, auf den man 2 Jahre gewartet hat. Die Musik von Hans Zimmer, Oscar-Nominierungen in den Kategorien Best Sound und Best Sound Editing. Und trotzdem ist es ein wunderschöner 80er-Jahre-Trash. Viele Genre-Stereotype, alles ist schön hart, schwarz-weiß und entspannt. Die Motorräder brummen, die Frauen haben Dauerwellen... Das Narrativ kehrt sogar zur japanischen Rache wegen Hiroshima zurück. Heute kann man das aber nicht mehr ernst nehmen. (09.03.2024)

One of Scott’s worst films, because it’s the most boring. Ridley Scott is still a master who can conjure up beautiful images, here supported by the charm of Japan's exotic setting, but it also displays the typical malaise of much of his work, a lousy script. Without Scott’s magic this is just a below-par, forgettable crime drama. (13.04.2003)

An excellent and gritty crime film perfectly directed by Ridley Scott, which typically symbolizes the 1980s and 90s. A gang of tough fighters, pumped-up visuals, plenty of murders and shootouts, and other necessary attributes. The exotic setting is a very good idea and some camera shots or whole sequences can remind you of Scott's opus Blade Runner. Hans Zimmer composed a fairly impressive electronic score with a hint of the Orient, and the name of the cinematographer (Jan De Bont) is definitely worth mentioning. The screenplay is not groundbreaking, but that is not a novelty for Scott. (01.12.2005)

The cabinet representative of the specific genre "totally American asshole in a non-American environment," as we know it, for example, from the second French Connection or xXx, which Carpenter so successfully parodied in Big Trouble in Little China. These films also appear as American mockery of the original Bond movies, where colonialistically elevated white men solve problems that local degenerate and corrupt regimes are unable to solve, and we are willing to tolerate them because they wear suits and speak formally. On the other hand, these all-American punks curse like bricklayers, they are repulsive, infantile, and inelegantly mobile. In this context, these films (even though not consciously) act as lively parodies of all those white savior films where the hero solves problems in a foreign country in his own way and in complete disregard for where he is and what the customs are. Furthermore, Black Rain beautifully captures the dirty streets of New York and visually conveys the specific chaotic cultural foreignness of Japan. That both of these dumbass detectives with mustaches are more or less exemplary middle-aged crises formed into human form is a matter that can be either survived or guiltily enjoyed, perhaps depending on how much the then culture of ultimate masculinity speaks to you, whose representatives were especially Walter Hill and John Milius. (22.07.2024)

From beginning to end, it's an obvious product of the action-crime film scene of the eighties. I don't quite understand why the former superstar Michael Douglas teamed up with Ridley Scott for such a mediocre subject that couldn't enrich their careers in any way. But I cannot just criticize, Scott is too skillful of a director who plays with atmosphere and most importantly, he is lucky because Hans Zimmer (not for the last time in his career) saves the whole film with his composing skills. (26.05.2007)