director's cut suggestions: remove the entire NY section. remove every scene where Douglas and/or Garcia say anything. double the length of all establishing shots. add in 1-3 additional pillow shots after each establishing shot at random. double the length of all shots where the camera cuts to anyone looking at streets or interiors. quadruple the length of any shots that contain smoke, steam, molten metal, or rain. add in any footage the camera operators accidentally shot of interiors, smear it with grease, and cover it with more synthesizer. just cut scenes Douglas is in at random unless they're action scenes. more motorcycle footage. can be unrelated footage from present day. replace the opening song and temptation's cover with 80s ornette coleman or debbie gibson. more shots with rain even if they are immediately contradicted by the following or preceding shots. 200% increase in aerial skyline/miniature city footage
I don't want to make some sort of case for this as an overlooked auteurist gem, but I do think it gets ignored by folks who fixate on the admittedly obnoxious 80s ugly American machismo (like that opening motorcycle race, I mean good Lord) at the expense of a downright gorgeous, relatively thoughtful and occasionally even digressive spin on the fish-out-of-water buddy cop jam, tired though the subgenre was by 1989.BLACK RAIN does a pretty good job of undercutting its main character's "plays by his own rules" nonsense by taking a strange hangout approach to Japanese police culture. We spend a lot more time in offices negotiating procedure, with each one of those encounters emphasizing that Douglas' individuality and bravado is nearly useless in the face of such a rigid social structure. But it's not that his "talents" aren't valued, merely that he hasn't learned to exercise them subtly (subtlety being a crucial tenet of the culture he's butting up against), something that is contrasted pretty well with Kate Capshaw's character (otherwise largely disposable except as a delivery device for exposition), who has managed to assimilate into this complex world without sacrificing her autonomy or her "American-ness" ("Where did you learn Japanese?" Douglas asks, to which she replies "Chicago.").And sort of like another film in this strain, Walter Hill's RED HEAT, BLACK RAIN seems to ultimately suggest that the American methods are outmoded and unsuccessful because of their more "democratic" focus on individualism. Where RED HEAT implies that the Soviet abandonment of due process is a valid solution to rampant crime, BLACK RAIN takes a slightly softer approach, suggesting that collectivism, self-sacrifice and sublimation of emotion are more valuable and, further, completely essential to navigating a world in which everything, even bureaucracy, has a double purpose, and where everyone, even the police, pretends that corruption and organized crime simply doesn't exist despite their open practice.Now obviously, in the end, this is all presented in a somewhat pedestrian fashion. Two guys with different value systems learn to respect each other. But what's interesting to me is that Takakura Ken's character, the Japanese side of the buddy cop equation here, doesn't eventually have to renege on his core values as a police officer to come to that place of mutual respect. Whereas Douglas' dirty cop has to admit his sins and understand how his illegal behavior affects not only his actual partner but the ability of the law to be enforced. And so I have always really loved the (reshot at the last minute) ending where Douglas actually arrests the villain rather than killing him at the end of the expected final fight scene.And Ridley, despite being completely erratic when it comes to narrative (even a pretty clean one like this) is one of the great all-time shooters. This film gets so much mileage out of the spectacular Osaka location photography (DP Jan De Bont!), the slickness of which I think has the unfortunate side effect of overemphasizing the faux grit of Douglas' loose-cannon swagger to the point where it seems we're meant to think he's a lot cooler and more capable than the script would suggest.Clearly I have spent way too much time thinking about this and then articulating it poorly here but long story short I don't think BLACK RAIN's generally crummy reputation is earned. It's symptomatic of Ridley's work as a whole in that a great deal of what makes it interesting tends to get lost in the battle between his terrible narrative instincts (stemming from his desire to go off on any tangent that interests him) and his desire to flip a lot of tropes on their head.
