Upon rewatching, I feel it's a bit overrated.
He departs from the brutal minimalism of his early 90's films and migrates into a self-indulgent, artsy area IMO. The music, while good, seemed overused and at times I felt the film served as a vehicle for Kitano's artwork. The script could have been a little more fleshed out. His character's utter lack of dialogue was almost annoying (whereas in Sonatine this worked as a device b/c the nature of the Murakawa character made contextual sense); here it didn't fit them film at times.
Kitano's best goes something like this:
Sonatine
Boiling Point
Violent Cop
Zatoichi
Hana-Bi
Kikujiro (better editing would have elevated this one)
"I farted and it relieved my lower stomach pain momentarily."