The Cinema Of Takeshi Kitano: Flowering Blood

I was curious about how Sean Redmond would approach the films of Takeshi Kitano in his book, The Cinema Of Takeshi Kitano: Flowering Blood (2012). From the introduction, I was under the impression that it might be a personal take on the director, country, and Tokyo itself. And while Redmond begins each chapter with a personal account of his physical and intellectual journey most of the book is concerned with far reaching turgid theoretical musings on the Kitano's body of work. In short, too much discussion of Deleuze and Foucault and too little discussion of the actual movies themselves. I fear that this book adds little to the scholarship done by Aaron Gerow in his comprehensive book on Kitano, Kitano Takeshi (World Directors). Redmond discusses the body of work to date, which includes films left out by Gerow's book (published in 2008), the last film he discusses is Zatoichi (2003)-Takeshis' (2005), Glory to the Filmmaker! (2007), Achilles and the Tortoise (2008), Outrage (2010), Beyond Outrage (2012). Of those film I couldn't bring myself to watch the navel gazing trilogy past Takeshis'. And I think the Outrage films have moments of entertainment, but seems to be repetitive and over exploitative in the use of violence. All in all, I feel that Kitano peaked with Hana-Bi in 1997. Redmond frames his discussion in the following format: Introduction: "Becoming Lost in Tokyo," Chapter 1: "Time, Space and Whatever," Chapter 2. "Flowering Blood," Chapter 3. "Intense Alterity" Chapter 4. "Starring Kitanos," Chapter 5. "This is the Sea," Conclusion: "Standing Outside Office Kitano," and Postscript: "I Welcome the Pain of it Already." I suspect that this book would be only of interest to academics or hard-core Kitano fans.