Customer Reviews

Black Rain

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My choice of title for this review comes from the fact that "Black Rain", evidently is the first major action movie scored by Hans Zimmer. Here is a quote from Daniel Schweiger, who wrote most of the liner notes for the "Broken Arrow" soundtrack CD (also composed by Zimmer), "Zimmer's work on A World Apart called him to the attention of director Barry Levinson, who offered the composer "Rain Man". Since then Zimmer has scored such diverse films as "A League of Their Own", "Driving Miss Daisy", "Beyond Rangoon" and the Oscar-winning "Lion King". But perhaps none of his music had the effect of "Black Rain", a soundtrack that combined Japanese rhythms with percussive computers and lush melodies."

The sound of Black Rain is, to use Schweiger's words again, "caught somewhere between the electronic and symphonic worlds." This becomes apparent when you listen to the suite at the end of the disc, which is a combination of the score's main themes.

But I can't do a review of this one without talking about the songs. They're just great! Almost all of them are used in the night club scenes except for "I'll Be Holdin' On"; this version is played at the end of the film.

Only Hans Zimmer could have scored this movie; so suspenseful is it.

This is a solid disc for fans of Ridley Scott's tough, violent, and cynical 1989 cop thriller, Black Rain.

The film has a lot of appeal: a major star, great support, lots and lots of style (Scott, of course), an intriguing story, action, etc, etc. It also has a pretty good Hans Zimmer score, combining some contemplative, Japanese flare with a few pounding, electronic elements, and a very good theme.

This disc mostly features the songs in the film. If you're a soundtrack addict, and you love tracking down random songs from films you love, this is a great disc. Shame it's out of print in the US, though it's a fairly priced import (about the same cost of a regular disc at retail in America now).

Greg Allman's song I'll Be Holding On differs here from the version in the opening credits, but it's still a decent tune, especially for the film. The other songs are pretty fun, and most of them appear in the night club outing scene in the film (before the inevitable karaoke bit). Iggy Pop contributes a poppy number that sums up his Brick By Brick sound. The bright UB40 cover of the famous tune The Way You Do the Things You Do is well placed in the film. The remix of Back to Life is a lot dancier, and better than the original, and it also appears during the nightclub scene in the film. Ryuichi Sakamoto's track is not entirely typical of his output, but it's very good, and memorable as well (the shot of Michael Douglas glaring at the Yakuza heavies as they pass him in the club). There's also the Sparks track Singing in the Shower, a loose, giggly dance number, exactly what you might expect from 1989. Most of the songs bring back images of Scott's Tokyo: lots of neon, rain-slicked streets, sleek nightclubs, grays and blues and blacks, etc.

Unfortunately, we only get one track from the actual score, and that's the Black Rain suite. Why do they always do this? We have a very talented composer, and his work for this popular film is reduced to one, long track. It's still very good, and fun to listen to in the 'suite' form (it's more or less in sequence from the film), though I imagine Zimmer fanatcis will want the whole score, which has never been released. I don't believe any bootlegs of it are around, though I could be wrong.

Recommended for fans of the film who love all of the associated music, and for those soundtrack fanatics--you know who you are!

I'm elated that I purchased my copy of Black Rain several years ago before it made it to the extinction list;as an import no less ! Not just the score of Zimmer captures the feel and moody atmosphere of the film, but also the individual various pop artists' tracks as well. Even for the late 80's the selection of tracks showed that even Japan had been influenced by Western pop culture (musically speaking).Yet, tracks from U.K.'s Soul II Soul and UB40 typified the club sound for back then.The only quirky track is Singing in the Shower with Sparks.The opening track Living on the Edge of the Night by Iggy Pop is a great soft-rock almost blues-like number. Greg Allman's soulful and throaty ballad I'll Be Holding On is a dramatic and emotionally serious track !

The only other Hans Zimmer score to come close with as much strong conviction and "action" would be the score for the Americanized version of La Femme Nikita entitled The Point of No Return. He combines his synthesizer wizadry with symphonic and classical elements and then gives the soundtrack a workout with some rock,electric guitar riffs ! On the Black Rain Suite he takes the listener on a thrilling and menacing roller coaster ride with his excellent synthesizer work and Japanese instrumental atmosphere. The result is (for anyone who has seen the film)Hans Zimmer takes you back to Japan with Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia. The listener ventures into the city's neon, futuristic, smoke filled and wet pavement nightlife.It's a city resembling Bladerunner with a more contemporary look (Maybe due to the fact director Ridley Scott directed both films)...

If any avid collector of soundtrack or eclectic music sees this one in a used c.d. shop, grab it ! It's a rare out-of-print title.Just don't let this fact alone make you want to buy it; it's all about the exceptional music and artists on it !...Also, there is another out of print soundtrack by other various artists for the 1987 Harrison Ford/Roman Polanski film Frantic. It also contained eclectic styles of music and artists (Ennio Morricone,Grace Jones, Simply Red, and David Sanborn). Like Black Rain, the music was moody and atmospheric with a strong pop-French feel versus Japanese. Part of the disc had various artists and the rest was music by composer Morricone...

I bought this album for two reasons.
1.The excellent and extremely cheesy "I'll be holding on"
2.The Black Rain Suite.

The rest of the album with the exception of the Iggy Pop song is utterly pap. I would strongly recommend any fans of hans zimmer to purchase this album. The final movement of the suite is probably more powerful than anything he has ever written.

All I heard was Greg Allman's soulful "I'll be holding on". What a bummer I can't get the soundtrack. Anyone know where I can get a copy? Is it also on some Greg Allman (Bros.) album somewhere? Purpelaze@hotmail.com

I have looked everywhere for this soundtrack because ther movie was great, and the Japanese music matched the movie

When they build the pantheon honoring great soundtracks from mediocre movies, Hans Zimmer's "Black Rain" will be high up there on the list. This was Zimmer's breakthrough and his first inroad into the style of his now common-place (and oft-imitated) epic sounding soundtracks done mostly now for big budgeted epic-styled motion pictures. He's done a flood of them since (not sure how the guy gets any rest), including "Batman Begins," "King Arthur," "The Last Samauri," "Blackhawk Down" and a few others in just the last couple years.

Included on this CD-soundtrack are the seemingly obligatory stale pop tunes that were a staple of almost all 80's soundtracks, as well as actual passages from the soundtrack music written by Hans (lumped together in the "Black Rain Suite"). If you like late 80 formulaic pop/rock tunage, then you'll probably like some of the stuff on this. I don't too much, so I'll focus on the actual compositions from Zimmer.

And what fine compositions they are. Very dynamic melding of symphonic power (powerful brass, percussion touches) and electronic (though still organic sounding) sounds, padding an interesting blending of asian-sounding (almost stereotypically so in places) and moving melodies. Where some soundtracks are lackluster without the visuals, or other ones almost seem incidental to the movie, Hans' "Black Rain" music marries nicely to the movie, substantially enhancing it, and yet still standing nicely by itself as a musical piece. And THAT is a commendable task for a composer to satisfy both the music aficionado AND the movie fan.

Bottom line: if you like Hans Zimmer's style and have enjoyed his output in the last decade or so ("Mission Impossible II," "Gladiator," "The Rock," and "Broken Arrow" just to name a few more) you'll likely enjoy these compositions here as well.

Not much else to add to the previous reviews but I'm dying to get a copy of this soundtrack again. I wore out my first tape and my second copy, as happened to another reviewer as well, was stolen from my car! I'm really into movie soundtracks but this one may very well be my all-time favorite. I hope Amazon can get a hold of some copies.

The CD is an excellent mix of country rock, and new age music and Hans Zimmer's soundtrack again proves that he is
up there with the best of the movie composers.

I liked the movie and this is an excellent soundtrack. The meat of it is some of Hans Zimmer's finest work. The other performers UB40, Iggy Pop, etc. add depth to the whole. Well worth the money I spent.