Black Rain

Black Rain

Dan: do you know we rarely, if ever, have recorded straight after watching a film in the man cave.

Reegs: We did

it after that crazy.

the Holy Mountain.

Dan: Oh, we did that? Yeah. Yeah. So it's a rare one. It's not. Never been done, but as a, as a trio. We all just watched Black Rain. the eighties action Classic thriller.

More than Action

Howie: Mm. Cop noir body,

Dan: body.

Howie: slightly xenophobic.

Reegs: Thriller. I think Thriller. Yeah.

Howie: yeah, yeah, yeah. Go for it. Comedy

Dan: Ridley Scott.

Howie: Yeah. And you can see a lot of Blade Runner ideals coming cinematography

Dan: visually.

Reegs: Yeah. The aesthetic. Yeah, certainly.

Dan: So it's, it is quite interesting cause we'd all seen this before.

Howie: Yeah. And you've gotta remember, I suppose it's eighties and Japan's still quite an exotic place for people to have, especially in the states to have

Reegs: Yeah. Well, America was afraid of the, of the Japanese in the eighties. I think it's fair to say

Howie: well, 40 years since World War. So that's the kind of thing cuz a lot of the characters

Reegs: economically, I think they saw Japan as a new economic power that was going to blow them away. And they were, you know, that was reflected in a certain amount of stuff.

And, and that certainly one of the themes of the movie actually.

Dan: So

For those of you who haven't heard about this film before, it is set in both America and Japan, and it's directed by Ridley Scott. It's got Michael Douglas in it,

Howie: Andy Garcia,

Reegs: yeah. young

Dan: 28 year old apparently according to the, the script, but looked a bit older, but Andy Garcia in it as well.

And the

Howie: Capshaw,

Dan: capsule who's married to Steve. George.

Howie: George Lucas's brother.

Reegs: Yes.

Dan: So, Douglass plays like a a mean cop, but yeah. How do we open

rigs?

Reegs: we open with a little dissolve from a Japanese flag onto like a little globe b thing. Maybe talking about the, one of the themes about the, do you know the fear of Japanese dominance that the Americans had?

And anyway, after that, we get straight down into Michael, Michael Douglas just looking tough and cool,

Dan: He, he roll riding a bike with a leather jacket. He's got a mullet just floating in the wind. And he goes under what looks like the

Reegs: Bridge. It's the Brooklyn Bridge. Yeah.

Dan: and he starts to have a proper old.

Grease Lightning drag Race.

Howie: Didn't see, yeah, I didn't see Van Diesel at any point.

Reegs: It has got a fast and furious type thing. They do a drag race down the side of the, the underneath the bridge away from

the,

Dan: where he goes up against another mad man. And he's madder and he does a, some kind of crazy jump.

Gets the,

Reegs: cuts him up,

basically. He,

kind of, he does a jump and cuts him up in front and it's dangerous. And the other guy slides and he beats him through the gates. And we know that Detective Nick Conland is not to be fucked with on a

Howie: for $50.

Reegs: Is that how much? It was? 50 bucks. Wow.

Dan: So, high stakes.

Reegs: But I think he was doing it for the

Dan: and then he Yeah, well he, he does cuz he's that kind of guy he rolls down into into work or No, back

Reegs: his apartment,

Howie: which is a bit flash.

Dan: He's really flash. It's,

Reegs: all the problems in his life,

Howie: are immediately extrapolated within one phone call.

Yeah,

Reegs: We get exactly like one scene that establishes that he's got an ex-wife and some kids that he doesn't

see quite

Howie: behind private

Reegs: Yeah, he's tight on money. And he's also got an Internal

affairs bureau be breathing down his neck.

And in fact when he gets to the office and he's gonna see Andy Garcia here, isn't it? Isn't he gonna be dragged in front of Internal Affairs to have a little chat?

Dan: It looks like it's gonna happen that way. Yeah.

The but he's got all these other cops and kind of friends like Andy Garcia and also the guy from the West Wing,

Reegs: John Spencer

Dan: telling him, you know, Don't be mouthy against these guys. Play it cool, you know, wear a suit and a

Howie: Show your medals.

Dan: your medals. You know, you, you are a hero.

Don't let him fuck you over here. And he's got an attitude that doesn't seem to be anywhere near that. He's just gonna go in there and

Reegs: well, he's a pretty brash, abrasive guy. Anyway.

Dan: said he's done nothing wrong and he, he's going in and basically they're. Accusing him for being friends with other people of taking money.

They're skimming a bit off the top that there was $65,000 handed in. But actually they heard it was 73, whereas the rest of it gone. He's saying, oh, oh, I dunno. You know,

Reegs: and they're asking him about other cops. Is he a good cop?

Dan: Exactly. And

Howie: He's not selling his mates out

Dan: No, it's all painting him in a bad light.

But he's promised after this anyway, to go for lunch with Andy Garcia and he, he stumbles on the, the one restaurant where a load of shit is about to go down.

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean, they seem to know that there's a bunch of mobsters there anyway, right. That they're having dinner at this place.

Garcia see is eating kind of almost in the kitchen.

Howie: Yeah.

On the side, on the bar. And drinking alcohol.

Reegs: Yeah. And whilst they're eating a guy, a guy comes in and Slu just, what does he slash

the

throat

first? No,

Howie: first of all, he walks in with a gun and go and

Reegs: makes

oh, yeah. Makes the machine gun

noise

Howie: everyone sort of stops still. And then you get the slow walk in of this mob. Well, this criminal, we dunno who he is, yet obvious, I dunno remember of the triads, you assume? Yeah. And he comes in, says a few things, pulls the old boy's shirt down and pulls out a box and rattles it.

And as he walks off, one of the guys at the table that he's just kind of robbed says something indistinct in Japanese. And he turns around and sticks a blade through his heart. Yeah. And then turns and basically OTs him, doesn't he? With a knife. He grabs him and slices his throat,

Reegs: Yeah. While the others are all saying, calm down, just

mind your own

Howie: keep eating. Don't look.

Dan: Yeah. The,

Howie: then all hell fucking breaks

Dan: the Italians decide. It's not their it's not their scene. Andy Garcia, though is, is bound his gun and

Reegs: and they've gone with this box that's clearly in, but cigar box size not clear what's

Dan: we, we, we don't know. They, they escape with that and there's a bit of a shootout. And it turns out. Michael Douglas characters. Nick has chased down one of the, the, the guys who we later learn is Sato.

Reegs: That's right.

Dan: And he's a big deal because when they get back into the cop house, they decide he's too hot to handle the Japanese embassies

Reegs: Well, he's not talking. And yeah, the Japanese embassy are involved. They want to get him away

Dan: And, and that's it. So he, Nick is pissed off. It's his collar. And you've gone really kind of, eighties hard man cop here, haven't you? He's,

Howie: those bastards in suits in City Hall.

Dan: Everyone's against him. And he is up against infernal affairs and then he just finds out that his, his kind of collar is.

Been given away and he hasn't, and he's just seen him kill two guys. He can't believe that he's saying no, he should be doing 20 to life. What were we giving him back for?

Howie: as a, as a halfway house. It looks like he, him and Andy Garcia are given the job of seeking Sato on a flight back to Osaka or Tokyo,

Dan: Yeah. So they're thinking. You know, we are gonna hand this guy over and then we've got a week in Tokyo

Howie: on the geisha

Dan: good time. Yeah. Brilliant. Fantastic. And that's what it goes over there. Soon as the plane opens, the police are there.

They hand, they hand over the,

Reegs: they sign a few documents. I mean, there's a few, yeah, it's a bit of confusion, a bit of cultural, you know, blah blah, blah's and,

Dan: smooth as silk though. And they, they start exiting the plane, getting their stuff together, thinking about the geisha girls. And

Reegs: yeah, well two minutes after the, the police have left, then the police turn up.

And it is actually

the

Dan: and the penny drops.

And I just felt at this point, oh God, yeah, really? He's meant

Reegs: like literally, what, a minute and a half. And they've already lost the

Dan: bri. He, he's meant to be like the, the best cop and everything. And you know, he's, and he's been done by the, the classic of course, though. When push comes to shove, he's saying, look, we'll take some of the heat, but we're not taking the rap.

Reegs: Well, it, there's, it immediately sets up a scene where he's like, this brash American is up against the kind of rigid social structures of the Japanese police force and the, and the hierarchy and

Dan: And nobody's speaking English. They've got one guy who's, who's kind of translating best he can.

And they're saying, look, it's, it's not our fault. How's the, how they got into a secure area? How have they, you know, walked past you? How has nobody seen them? What, what the hell is going on here? Yeah. We gave 'em to the wrong person, but they had documents and then the one guy who sat there the whole time, not speaking English, goes their insurance papers.

Reegs: Well, there's a few times that they assume people that they're speaking to don't understand them, and they're shown to be imbecile for their

Dan: just lack of respect really as much as

Reegs: Yeah, Yeah.

yeah.

Dan: But they, they do play that up where they're coming in and they're calling everyone babe all the time,

Reegs: They call each other, babe. Him and his partner call each other babe all the time. It's amazing babe. Isn't it babe? Babe. If it'd be like, if we were here. Alright, babe.

Dan: Yeah, babe.

It's so,

Reegs: weird,

Howie: kill some motherfuckers. Babe.

Reegs: Babe. So yeah, they're assigned Matsu. Matsu. MoCo. Is that his name?

Howie: Maz.

Reegs: Should we just call him ma? They do

Dan: matto I think. Did they call him Ma

Reegs: MoCo Ma? They call him.

Dan: ma babe.

Reegs: He's as, I don't really know why they're given him.

Howie: He's kind of like Right man, wrong place assistance. Not really someone important.

Reegs: Yeah.

Howie: probably a paper pusher. Yeah. Cuz he kind of alludes to the fact throughout the film that he's not really a go-getter.

probably someone, do you know what we've got active police investigations to sho a

Reegs: a pencil pusher. That's

Howie: You're pushing too many pencils.

Dan: one of a group. He alludes to that a few times,

Reegs: Well, he's not in the group though, is he?

Dan: No. Well, he finds

Howie: What sort of group sex cult. Let's, let's go with that.

Reegs: And so against the backdrop of this sort of police investigation that's occurring in Japan, that's trying to keep them, trying to keep Michael Douglas out of it, he starts to want to conduct his own

Howie: He's an observer, he's

Reegs: into things.

Howie: He's only allowed to be an observer with no gun.

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: So they, they kind of go into this buddy cop part where they start jumping onto all the ongoing investigations and any tips and leads that might lead to this guy they've given away at the. At the airplane, they want to get him back because Nick's getting some flack. He's even been said by the already ongoing investigation that he might have made a deal with this guy to, to let him go.

So he really wants to prove. That's not the case and that he can get him back and it, so it's become a, a source of pride for him to find this guy again and get him back behind bars.

Reegs: Yeah. So next we are gonna, there's a call to a dead body, which at the scene, Michael Douglasson and Andy Garcia recognizes one of the guys who was. At the airport. Yes. So they're connecting this death.

Howie: Yeah. Well, he would've had stuff put in his gob, isn't he?

Reegs: Conveniently for the plot. Yeah. He's had his throat slashed.

He's tied to a chair, he's got stocking stuffed in his mouth and a hundred dollar bill.

Howie: That's how he, he, he would've wanted to have

Reegs: you would've Wanted to. go.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah.

It, it is a, it is a classic and as they're kind of tidying the room and, and. Gauging all the things that are gone there. There's some money on the side that,

Howie: Oh no, that's,

Reegs: later.

Howie: That's slightly later. This is still in the nightclub.

Reegs: gets introduced to Kate Capshaw for the first

Howie: first, and they see the girl with the sequins

Reegs: as he comes out afterwards. Yeah. They, he's like, oh, well, who found the body first and this, this girl who's getting bundled away. And then the sort of hostess,

Howie: Yeah.

Well, it's a hostess bar. It's a Japanese hostess bar. And she's kind of like the mother. She's the mother. They call him the mother.

Reegs: Yeah. she it's Kate Capsule, Steven Spielberg's ex looking, absolutely smoking hot. And she's got blood on her, which Michael Douglass notices. So he wants to get close to her and he says, oh. She says, oh, I consoled the woman who did actually find the dead body and that's how I got blood on me. And then they strike up a bit of conversation.

He calls her Chicago cuz that's where she's from. Where did you learn Japanese? Chicago. finds a few bits out about her, doesn't he?

Dan: Yeah. They just establish a little bit of a, a connection after this, I think. Then do they find that money?

Reegs: she gives him a bit of background, doesn't she? About the

Howie: gang war with the guy. Yeah.

Reegs: And that's right. Are involved in a kind of turf war. There's a sort of alliance, I can't remember what they call them. It's

Howie: Oh, oh, your bands.

Reegs: Oh yeah,

Dan: It's, it's a bit of a secret, isn't it? It's just,

Reegs: Well, an open secret

Dan: her and 11 million people that know it.

Reegs: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. She, so she fills him in on this stuff that's going on that he's completely ignorant about that everybody else in Japan knows about this fight between these two warring crime lords that were part of a group of,

Dan: he used to be STO, who is the ultimate villain in this film. Used to be the lieutenant of Sugi who is one of these. Like Yakus are

Howie: Yeah.

The top, the top boy in he and yeah. And that's, he's kind of gone rogue cuz he wants to seat

Dan: it's a classic story, isn't it? Is the, the young apprentice wants a little bit more and he's. To get it. He's a little more ruthless and he's a little more evil and he's prepared to back stab anyone to get what he wants.

He wants more territory and he wants his own kind of respect and tribe and whatever else crime. positions.

Howie: Well after this, this is where we see that Nick and Charlie continue as observers and they're gonna join a police raid without permission.

Reegs: Yeah. They go on that raid for one of

Howie: a bathhouse.

Yeah. And he headbutts one of the guys that he recognizes from the

Reegs: And this is the scene you were talking about, Dan, where there's counter there's money on the

Dan: Finally

we've got there.

Reegs: and yeah.

And

Douglass's character pockets some of the money.

Howie: Yeah, and Matsumoto sees it and is, says it's a disrespectful

Reegs: disgusted later.

But what he didn't realize is that in the scene before that Michael Douglass had already established that the money was fake. He'd burned it in front of Andy Garcia and we were to know that it was fake for, for

that

Dan: and to, to know it's fake. He, he could tell how far the, the flames would go, how high they would go

Howie: and the print came up.

What have you got that wrong? What on, mate? He just burnt a hundred quid.

Dan: Yeah. But he's back in everything that he's got it right. And thankfully he does. But Maso has,

Reegs: so Nick is instantly right. Kind of got the plan straight away. Right. Because he's like, well, that's what the box was. It had plates in it.

We know what's going down.

Dan: You've got, you've got a currency problem. But he has already been told told off about nicking the money. He's been told the captain back home and he's, he's kind of disgraced again. Before he can prove himself. Eventually he does though, and says there, that's what it was. And they go out drinking that night.

Reegs: Yeah.

And we get a great scene of Andy Garcia singing,

Howie: Tammy Water,

Reegs: Charles

Howie: something or

Dan: Yeah. He does a bit of Ray Charles,

Reegs: It's definitely him singing and he's got a pretty good voice.

And he gets the uptight, Matt's Matt's to sing with him.

Dan: That's right. And he gives him his tie. And it's, it's a really nice night.

You think, oh, they're, they're gonna pull together as a team.

Howie: They've bonded.

Dan: Michael Douglass couldn't sit with Matau too much though because he did rat him out and, and tell the before he came to his partner. So he's that classic cop, isn't, he's, you've gotta do right by me first and your partners everything. But as he's walking home with his partner, Some guy on a bike.

They played this game where Michael Douglass is on a bike and he kind of

Reegs: like a matador,

Dan: like a matador. So Andy Garcia will stand there with his trench coat and we'd seen it earlier in the film where Michael Douglass's rev his bike on a New York Street really outta control and

Reegs: like a complete dick. If you were doing that, if somebody was doing that in the street with their bike, you'd be like, you fucking

Dan: but they can, but they can do it cuz they're policemen.

Howie: And you could do anything when you're a

Dan: You policeman. Yeah. Well if you're a detective in New York,

Reegs: in the eighties

Dan: and you've got a mullet and a leather jacket. You can pretty much do what

Howie: ticking so many

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. The aviator sunglasses as well. Cigarettes dripping off the lips. Yeah. So he looked the fall part, little bit stubble. And so that he does this again and he thinks this guy's just playing. It's a lovely. Kind of lit street, well paved, there's lights on. And there's kind of post this motor bike is weaving

Howie: He's going through columns

Dan: and Yeah.

Howie: It's like a city mall or it's a shopping mall.

Reegs: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Howie: he's just, It's very much kind of impending

Reegs: well, it seems playful at

Dan: Yeah. Ev everybody's in a, in a kind of good mood. Not many people on the street, but they, you're laughing along and Andy Garcia turns and becomes the matador for this guy who drives past the Nick's jacket which has his passport in and begins a big chase away from Michael Douglas, who's still kind of thinking it's a game.

and And

they're both pissed. And it ends up. Being a, a game of death.

Reegs: he

lures into a sort of underground parking garage. Yeah. Which for some reason, only Andy Garcia can get into and a loaded motorbikes.

But Michael Douglas can't, even though they came from the same. Direction. Anyway and to cut a very long story short, Charlie Andy Garcia, the fun-loving guy, is very quickly surrounded by bikes and then brutally decapitated in

Dan: Yeah.

Reegs: summarized

Howie: Yeah. He gets stabbed twice. And then Soto looks at Charlotte, looks at Michael Douglas.

Reegs: And

Dan: of laughs at him.

Laughs

Howie: and sort of does that weird manacle smile that

Dan: that's got scrapes, the sword on the floor and

Reegs: drives him out on the motorbike and decapitates him on the motorbike with the blade, isn't it?

really's quite

Howie: a sharp sword and that kind of

Reegs: it puts a real crimp in Michael Douglass's day.

Howie: It does. And basically Douglass is now thinking, Michael Douglas is thinking, I, I'm fucked it's, it is kind of, there's, there's gonna be a lot of people making him go home.

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah. Well first of all, Matt's has gotta teach him a lesson about respect to do with his collecting his belongings. And

Dan: right. There's a tradition that he can take some personal belonging of the deceased and he chooses his gun. Yeah. And To be fair, Matt so knows this and he's made the kind of decision that he's gonna go with him and they go and try and exact some revenge.

Howie: Yeah. They go to the smelting factory,

Dan: don't they?

They they follow, yeah,

they follow

Howie: Follow the girl with the sequin.

Reegs: Yeah.

Howie: They have a moment where he is eating noodles,

Reegs: Slurping in big style

and it's,

and gradually he's becoming, they're teaching each other about each other's cultures and you know, it's supposed to be that he's opening up Matt's a little bit and bringing him out of himself.

And also Michael Douglas is kind of learning not to be a dick all the time,

Dan: Well, not all the time. Yeah. Not to be quite as huge a our asshole as

he,

Reegs: sometimes remember to have tea or to take his shoes off or

Howie: like

that. Yeah, something like that. Etiquette. He's learning.

Reegs: Yeah.

So God, there's a lot of plot.

So the, at the smelting we've skipped the smelt,

Dan: We, we got the smelt

Reegs: looked gorgeous and the sound design

Dan: Well, we, we talked about a couple of times the, the lighting where it was. Blade Runner

Howie: Yeah. Quite dystopian and neon. And you could see he's obviously got an affinity for Tokyo, Ridley Scott, and

Dan: Lots of piping as well.

Howie: Yeah, it was, it was a mixture of city metropolitan and industrial, isn't it?

It was quite contrasting and it kind of, it showed The hard underbelly of what the flashy neon Tokyo is actually also a dark industrial place where as we see the members of the Yakuza are kind of looking to speak to Sato and he wants a deal he's talking about, oh, I haven't brought the plates with me because that's my insurance policy.

And then Do they arrange? They, they kind of, I, I dunno what prompts them to leave the meeting. That's, I can't, sorry, I can't remember that.

Dan: what, what happens is that, They didn't bring the plate, he kind of makes an idle threat about him wanting to live longer and I won't live as long as you old man or, or something like this.

And they, they kind of fall out and scuffle. And Michael Douglas, who at this point I think is. Got the march on him. He knows that they're there. He, they dunno he's there, but still they manage to escape. When push comes to shove, there's, I think one of them gets shot, but Sato again escapes. And as he does escape, Michael Douglass is running down the street with a gun after him.

Yeah. Is k kind of the end of the day or lots of Yeah. People on bikes checking out work. And the police just turn up. And grab Michael Douglas. And then put him on a plane back home.

Howie: and ma gets suspended,

Dan: and then one of the, the most.

Reegs: has he already admitted to Matt's at this point, by the way, that he was a dirty cop? That's gonna happen around this point as well.

Dan: Yeah. He, he kind of

Howie: oh, he did at the noodles, I think it was when he was doing his noodle

Reegs: the noodles.

He

Howie: the noodles when they were stalking. He said, yeah, I took some,

Reegs: he did take,

he

was also part of the skimming.

So

Dan: when, when they're about to go

Reegs: into

and he and Matt's tells him he's a disgrace. Yeah, that's what he says.

Howie: Yeah. Properly goes full guilt trip on him. You are a disgrace. Nick was a good policeman.

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: And then he goes, thanks. He kind of just says, you're disgrace. He says, thanks. And then they go into

Howie: Charlie,

Dan: into, into that war together. But fast forward back to where he was. He's just been arrested.

He's been put onto a plane back home and he's in a leather jacket on a plane. Yeah. In that kind of gray. Turtle, neck

Reegs: flee, sting,

Dan: fleeing. He must be baking on that plane.

Reegs: Sweating.

Howie: Sweating balls

Dan: just so hot. And he

Reegs: once again demonstrates one thing I learned from this movie is how terrible Japanese airport security is because he just goes into sneaks into the kitchen, the galley

and

Dan: gets into like a mini fridge space and then

Howie: goes dead below decks,

Dan: and then it, it is like, which is actually an, an elevator as

Reegs: Oh, he also, we forgot to say as he was on the plane thinking about going home, he looked out the window and saw the coffin of Charlie being loaded onto

the, plane. Amazing. So if he needed any,

Dan: going up. The travelator

Reegs: for you.

Howie: Look how bad you are.

Reegs: going in with the suitcases and somebody's guitar. So

Dan: So he, he does that moment a little bit like yeah, I, I, that moment of Palm Springs or something. That's shit you remember there. He, he kind of just got his timing perfectly right?

Yeah. Was able to weave, weave through people and,

Reegs: Well, he runs past

about 10 ground staff who just don't give a

Howie: Yeah,

just look at him. Oh.

Reegs: So, and sneaks out the airport we're led to believe how you said to us, cuz then it just cuts to him. He going up to

Howie: Madison's apartment

Reegs: Mass apartment. Yeah. Like he got out of the whole airport. Just walked out.

Howie: Yeah. Got to mass apartment mass, reveals that he's been disgraced by the whole situation and

Reegs: and his son hates him.

And also he is got a son.

Dan: Yeah.

Howie: Which you were thinking initially was

Reegs: his lover.

His lover, yeah.

Howie: But yeah, he's been disgraced.

He's been rejected by the group of people he's with. Yeah. Which is nondescript. We've assumed it's a sex cult

Reegs: Well, it's important to be part of groups in Japan though, isn't it?

So,

Howie: So we don dunno what that group is, but then Douglass says to him, you've got a chance to redeem yourself, sort of thing.

Yeah. You know, do it for him, do it, do it for Charlie. Come on, you can do it. And he kind of sort of ums and ours and then says, no, I can't help you. Get outta my house.

Reegs: he tells me about, is this where he tells me about the black rain?

He explains about the title of the,

Howie: No, this, the black rain is explained to him by the,

oh,

Reegs: that's the gangster guy, isn't

Howie: he goes to see Joyce

Reegs: Cat, Capshaw. Yeah.

Howie: She gives him some money and some food. And then she says, go to this golf

Reegs: That's right.

Howie: And he goes to the golf range, which is this amazing three-tiered driving range in the middle of Tokyo at night.

Reegs: It's huge. Henchman, dangles him off a, a sort of

Howie: one of the

Dan: a, a two or three. Tia golf

Yeah.

Driving range, isn't it? He's, he's just got him by one hand. Schwartzenegger style. Just leaning him back. Yeah. Over the edge. And he's, he's just looking really cool though, isn't he going? Well, I think he's got nothing left to lose and he gives him a hundred dollars or which we know to be the counterfeit money.

And the boss says, right, go on. Then I'll have a conversation with him.

Reegs: So, yeah, he's reached out to Sue Guy, the enemy of CTO in the Klan, and

Dan: which was a clever move. Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah. And he's demonstrated his knowledge of what's going on by showing him the bill

and, that gets him a meeting.

Howie: We thought there was an unnecessary amount of roughness when he got into the car.

Reegs: Yeah.

Howie: He said, oh, am I getting in?

Reegs: oh, I get in, he gets in one car and there's another car and he could have just got in the car, but his henchman like just duffs him in.

Howie: proper, thumps him

Reegs: And you said that's how you get your kids in the car,

Howie: You said that would be both an agreeable and more definingly ergonomic method of bending your child to get into a seat.

Reegs: Yeah. So anyway, they do bundle

Dan: So the jury's out on that one. But they got, they got him out and in and having this conversation, he recovered quick from quite what was quite a brutal beating.

Howie: Head Koosa basically goes on a ramp to him about how he was in World War II as a child, and the Tokyo when it rained and they came out of hiding after the bomb.

It rained black land. Yeah. And said that we in Japan are doing everything to America to fuck you up, basically. And this is all part of

Dan: Yeah. Well he said that, you know, you brought in your values after that we forgot who we were. And you created people like Sao, who are the new, modern, more ruthless Yeah. And less traditional no honor kind of villains.

So this is on you, Michael

Douglas?

Reegs: a product of American foreign policy.

Dan: Yeah.

Howie: And Douglass says to him that Douglass basically tells him that he could kill Sato for him and avoid all the Yakuza oath breaking and lack of honor. And he says, I am the solution to your problem.

Dan: He, he does say also like, I couldn't do that because I've promised peace and I, I, it's honor.

But he ends up actually like going, oh, well, okay then. And giving him a shotgun and some bullets on a, on a muddy path.

Howie: Remote paddy field or

Dan: Yeah. Ju just outside where all the bosses are going to meet for a, a defining moment of truth and. Like Tru,

Reegs: Yes. Were they're gonna talk it out. Yeah. Sato and the rest of the crime lords.

Howie: and Douglass is stalking this Patty farmhouse as

Reegs: he does, yeah. He, he scopes out the place, he's got this shotgun with an explicit instruction to go in there on sort of, green lit by Suga to, is that his name?

Dan: Yeah. Sue guy wants, he, he's saying, look, I'll take him out.

And he go, why should I trust you? And he goes, look, what, what have you got to lose? Ultimately, I suppose he had his life to you lose cuz he's just given Michael Douglas a, a bullet. Yeah. Well, a load of bullets and a shotgun and, and said I'm gonna be sat next to him. Yeah. Don't shoot me. Shoot

Reegs: shoot him.

Make sure you get the right guy. So Douglas is gonna storm the place, but he realizes pretty quickly that Satos got his own guys there disguised

as

Howie: a double cross,

Dan: he, he only realizes

Reegs: he's nearly

taken out as he's

Dan: by a

guy. You just see really quickly in the, in the trees and then next scene just as he's about to, to kill.

Michael Douglas.

Reegs: Matt's

Dan: comes outta nowhere,

Reegs: leaps out of nowhere to

Dan: literally nowhere. You haven't seen this at all, but there's two of them now.

Reegs: Yeah. And he's got his Parker on and he's

Howie: ready. He is a

Reegs: business.

Dan: Michael Douglass is going in Satos gonna cover the front and they're gonna head over to try and end this.

Howie: And then, but while this is going on, there is a gruesome. Ceremony taking

Reegs: Yeah.

Howie: Yeah.

Reegs: Sarto has to make

Howie: Yeah. He has to, he has to show penance for his sins, doesn't he?

Dan: So meanwhile, in this barn, this is all going on, isn't it?

Howie: So he, Soto has to, and I've just adopted the position, he has to put his hand on this block, tie a tourniquet around his little finger, and then as a sign of showing that he's now gonna become one with the Yakuza, he uses a rather sharp dagger to basically cut off his little pinky.

And there is a, Grizzly crunching sound, and he has to do it himself. And he kind of, you don't necessarily, you don't see the cut, hear the gristle go, the look in his eyes of, oh my God, I've cut my finger off. And then you see him pull his hand away and the little fingers just left there.

Yeah.

And that's horrible.

Reegs: And the subtitle said, bones

Howie: Yes.

That's what it said. Yeah.

Then he says to Sarto, Sit next to me. I like jab of the hartwood. Yeah. and he sits next to and they, and it

Dan: And it must have really been hurting cuz we talked about when you kicked your toe, didn't we? And

Reegs: oh, it's a step on a piece of Lego, but this is worse,

isn't it?

Howie: I, I'd say this is slightly worse than the shin injury in shallow, shallow grave with the crowbar across the

Reegs: Mm-hmm. We recently watched that, Harry. I

Dan: I don't dunno. That was oof. They're both gruesome. But Instead of taking the, the drink, he stabs suga in the hand.

Howie: No. Does suga die, do you think?

Dan: No,

Reegs: because of the hand thing.

Howie: Well, cuz,

Dan: There's a lot of guns

Howie: there is a hell

Reegs: well, it just erupts into war.

Howie: it's basically a giant cowboy, military western going on after this. Everyone just blazing

Dan: guns. Yeah. I, I couldn't see, I didn't keep an eye on him because it moves quite quickly because Michael Douglass is edged his way closer and closer and starts shooting at some of the henchmen in and around.

But Sato again is kind of lept out of the building and the chase begins.

Reegs: Yeah.

And

Howie: fields on a scrambler bike, which links into the very start of,

Reegs: Yeah. So we already know that Detective Michael Douglass is mullet is gonna,

grown

over the movie. We commented on this, didn't

we They got bigger over

Howie: the, and it grew even bigger on the stunt double,

Reegs: yeah,

Howie: the motorbike.

Dan: Yeah. We, we, we did think that that might be the hero of the day and either of

Reegs: some strong

stunts here, though, with the motorbikes and the chase scene. And then when he takes him out, it's good. And they have this kind of knife fight and in amongst a forest that

Dan: it looks, it looks like it's all over for Michael Douglas, he finds some inner character from somewhere.

Somewhere

Howie: push it to the limit.

Needed a montage to really get him going. I felt,

Dan: and he kind of did this double hand. Karate chopped to the neck,

Howie: said was more of a massage. Yeah.

Dan: It, it just kind of relaxed him down into kneeling position where he was able to finish him off and there was

dip

Reegs: in the bollocks in this I

Dan: there was, there was

Howie: babe bollocks balls.

There's

Reegs: There's a

Dan: There's very eighties. And then there was, I dunno. Was it a, like a moving spiky thing or was

Howie: Well, no, there was, first of all, Douglas was wrestling with him and Douglass kept getting pushed back into the motorbike wheel that was on. And you, one of you said, I

Reegs: that no one goes into that it's a crime.

Howie: one of you said, it is lucky he had a leather jacket on. Yeah. Because it was given no friction burns. Yeah. But then once Douglas has had the resurgence, as you said, and started pulverizing him with proper drunk swingers. As that Stallone moment. Yeah. He. Grabs him and they both look at a bamboo spike sticking out the ground and they look at each other.

Look at each other, look at each other, and then it cuts

Reegs: you think he killed

him.

Howie: but

Dan: and he would've, you know, he killed his partner. There was no one there to look. But next thing. Opened the door, the police department and two battled hardened cops are, are walking through with their prize.

And walking

Howie: and a

Dan: Yeah, straight through the top. It really was. And even the, the, the head ho show cop turns around, he can't quite believe his eyes and. Oh, there's a real look of respect and grunts kind of affirming the same, and then we cut to like an award ceremony.

Reegs: Yeah, yeah,

Howie: Yeah.

Dan: Then, then like, yeah.

Then it's like,

Reegs: then Kate Capshaw from

Dan: married. There was all kinds of stuff going

Reegs: But after there is literally an award ceremony where everybody claps. Then after the award ceremony meets

Dan: It was like after Ming, the Mer merciless has died or something. There was just

Howie: like, and you said, have we just skipped 20 minutes of plot?

Reegs: Yeah.

Because then he meets cake cap. Sure. And they promised to have a fuck and have a little

Dan: kid. Yeah. There's a little knowing look

Reegs: And then Matsumoto, then he's at the airport going home. So we really don't find out what happened at all to the Rest of the crime syndicate,

Dan: but we, we do know what happened to the crime scene because they never found those plates.

Reegs: Yeah. We didn't really talk about how important they are, but they're central to the plot. And at the, yeah, so they, they did find the printing plates that could, anybody could print unlimitless if you had the

Dan: to

two. Yeah, that's it.

Howie: If you had the connections, the major machinery, the chemicals involved, except for life, a factory except for a anyone. The

Reegs: is right, they're setting up the implication. Dirty cop Nick, is he, has he pocketed the things? Is he gonna walk off? It's a ridiculous question. I think there's a bit of a difference between skimming a grand off

Howie: the top

Reegs: of a take. Yeah. And setting up a counterfeit.

Howie: operation.

Operation.

of billions of dollars.

Reegs: Yeah. So,

Dan: but it, but it's okay because Mattos there at the airport giving a gift, a parting gift and as often as the, the culture. Then there was another gift given just on the way out. Almost forgot about it. Oh, there's a massive kind of box. Box which must have been like, His whole bag basically.

And there's a lovely shirt in there. Yeah. But under the shirt reads, it's the plates, the two plates. The one that had been one hand of mafia Yakuza boss and the other one that had been in the other and killed for, to get where it was

Reegs: given back to Matt, Sam Moko, so he can be the hero as

Howie: Or

if he knew a printing press

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah. And he was so inclined.

Howie: Cuz I mean, he's got a pretty shitty son and he's just got nothing to live

Dan: Obviously. Leaves, leaves all the questions of how he came to get it a week after the crime scene had been cleared up and everything. But that's, that doesn't matter because

Howie: he does a thumbs

Dan: It, there's a, there's a

Howie: double thumbs up.

Dan: Right at the end that

it's

Reegs: It's a

double thumbs up. Yeah.

Dan: That affirms everything is going to

Howie: and he does that kind of little no, in a wink. Oh, Nick, you fucking can't, you've just handed me this evidence really late in the day, John,

Dan: where he just clicks his heels at the end? No, but

Reegs: why did you conceal the fact that you'd stolen it?

Only to hand it in later? It seems

Howie: like you were going to take it back to England.

Dan: so maybe it's, it was Nick's redemption and even though he will be done by Internal Affairs back in New York so that was it.

That was Black Rain. Then we went into a really kind of eighties.

Howie: Kenny Logan. Top Gun style. Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah.

Howie: Oh my god.

Dan: It's a black Wayne.

Howie: That went a bit. T hit the black ring.

Dan: Yeah, it was, it was Okay. Eighties thriller. Yeah. It, it wasn't quite as pacey as I thought it could have been. And I, I think maybe it another, Parts.

It was too pacey where it just went through the, the end very quickly. There was conversations in it that really helped you catch up quickly, but sometimes you felt, or they could have

Reegs: it was just hard to give a shit about Michael Douglas. Really?

Howie: Yeah. Yeah.

Reegs: that's the, that was really the main thing for me. His character is like just a bit of, you know, I know the whole point is that he's like,

Dan: yeah, but too macho and not enough likable.

Reegs: Barely anything to cling onto other than once stole a bit of money.

Dan: Well, we, they tried to paint it out to be good at the, the beginning that he's paying the.

The money to his ex-wife for alimony money, I guess is it. And but he gives it to the kid Yeah. To take in

Howie: That kid just went awesome.

Dan: Yeah. I'm going to

Reegs: I wondered if it had come straight from the cash that he

Howie: Yeah, I think that was in

Reegs: Yeah. So, mm,

Howie: He yeah. Yeah, I

Reegs: A part of Ridley Scott is good. So, you know, it looks pretty good. And you know, it's hand Zimmer, the

soundtrack I don't think is, is aged

Dan: and and depending on which chat g kind of printout, you read to, it's the 10th, 1346 film of Ridley

Howie: Any of those, it could be correct answer. So it brought, it was a 30 million pound budget brought in about 130 according to the critics. It's seen as a bit of a cult classic for some, it's one of those ones, I, I think that's all based on the styl stylization.

Reegs: mostly kind of funny now, really like the plot, you know, it's been done to Earth, but

it's quite an old,

Dan: but I, you know, I like the fact that it mixed up with Japan as well, you know, that didn't happen a lot in, I think that's what made it a little more. Exotic than your other thrillers of the time. Michael Douglas obviously a, a huge starter done Wall Street at this point. And I dunno, I, I thought it was the, the atmosphere and everything, I caught it. You know, I thought he was on point, to be honest. It was just maybe a little bit with, as you say, the character of Michael Douglas.

Really not being anyone you wanted to root too hard for other than Michael Douglas carrying it because he's

Reegs: cuz he is

Dan: got a glint in his eye and

Reegs: but also sleazy prick as well. Yeah. Pretty average, but then a strong recommend as well.

Dan: Han Zimmer. Yeah. He was

Reegs: Yeah, I said that for you.

Dan: No, he was involved a lot.

a weird one.

Howie: It's an odd one because Douglass almost phones in some of his acting in this. I wonder because it says, it says that this is his first major one after being Gordon Gecko, which is obviously such a huge success.

I wonder if his ego's got the, got the better of him a little bit in this.

Dan: hitting the cock collar too much at the time.

Howie: I was wondering after this, is it basic instinct is next

Reegs: Do you reckon he was shagging Kate caps or

Dan: He was definitely someone

Howie: Spielberg was,

Dan: a, quite, well, he's a sex addict, isn't he? Michael Douglas. Yeah. Bless his heart. No,

Howie: No, it's a tough, I mean, my heart goes out too.

Dan: Yeah.

Well in this film I Not his best character, not his best performance.

Reegs: nobody's best really, is it?

Howie: No. Well, Garcia,

Reegs: Garcia's best singing

Dan: performance, but no, Garcia actually was.

in this. I thought he was really good. He was probably the, the shine, the most shining light out

Reegs: they called each other babe.

Howie: babe.

Dan: So, I dunno, recommend there's a lot of other good films out there.

I'm glad I've revisited it again though, because it's been a long time since I've

Howie: I reckon, oh, I won't watch it again.

But I do think it's a, that's a definite classic edited down for a Channel five type of film. Do you know what I mean? Like Sunday night they got nothing else to put on on

Reegs: on Black Rain. All right, babe.

Howie: Babe,

Dan: do it, babe.