Here's to Takeshi Kitano

johnny_ultimate

He's known in the West as the teacher from Battle Royale and the Takeshi from Takeshi's Castle (although his role has been entirely cut from the English version to favour people snotting themselves). In Japan, he's a comedy superstar known by his nickname 'Beat' Takeshi (also how he credits his acting performances). But Takeshi Kitano must be the most underappreciated auteur making films today. I just watched A Scene at the Sea - a wonderful, charmingly innocent and almost silent comic-drama about a deaf garbage collector who takes up surfing - and it just confirmed what I already knew. Few, if any, directors are as confident at both minimal lyricism and extreme, violent genre cinema - often in the same place.

He'll be remembered for his Yakuza movies. He's a master at blackly comic gangster movies - from the brilliantly structureless Sonatine to this year's very entertaining Outrage. Hana-Bi is certainly his masterpiece in this regard - perhaps the most thoughtfully paced, beautifully realised film ever made about organised crime. These films also tend to show up his understated, minimalist acting style best of all. He's often a one-trick pony when it comes to acting - blank, almost childlike stares contrasted with bursts of ultraviolence - but he makes for one crazy yakuza who the audience will still root for even during his most violent outbursts.

But he's not just a genre director. Kikujiro is my personal favourite of his, and it's a truly heartwarming road trip film with Kitano befriending a young, troubled kid. It also shows up his fruitful relationship with composer Joe Hisashi to glorious effect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEb4TG10jW8

Zatoichi is perhaps his most viewed directorial effort, and with good cause: it's an invigorating entry in a popular Japanese samurai franchise. But under Kitano's direction, it's anything but a standard samurai movie (anyone whose witnessed the brilliant insane ending will know what I mean).

I'm still working through his back catalogue - I'm particularly curious to see how he handles a sex comedy (Getting Any?). Like all the greats he's not perfect - he's made at least two strange and much reviled 'meta' films. I've seen Takeshiis - a film that defies any standard description - and it's pretty out there even for fans.

Yet few auteurs have the same depth and varied back catalogue as Kitano. Most importantly, he's distinctly individual. He's one of the few contemporary Japanese directors to belong up there with the great masters of their national cinema, and here's hoping he still has some greats left him

To Kitano!

Ronan H

To Kitano indeed, Zatoichi is incredible.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

hrm, i dont think i've seen getting any. must check it out

i remember you saying in the other thread you weren't crazy about takeshis but I loved it, long time since I watched it but it was just nuts and it was funny seeing takeshi acting as takeshi acting as takeshi... if I remember it right

Brother was the first film of his I saw, still love it to this day. His acting style of just... staring at the camera, chuckling and then beating the crap out of someone.. simple but kinda endearing and for the characters he tends to play, bloody effective.

i'm not crazy about violent cop or boiling point though.. it's been a long time since I watched them but they just didn't grab me in the same way some of his others did. Outrage too I ... I don't want to say I'm not a fan of, I don't dislike the movie but I didn't particularly like it either. I watched it, and I enjoyed it but I didn't pause for a few seconds while the credits rolled to say 'wow' to myself like I do after the ending of hana-bi. Even when I know it's coming I still have to take a second while the credits roll just to .. I dunno, savour the experience or something.

Links234

I really need to watch one of his films again, was a big fan, but I don't think I've seen anything since Zatoichi?

really must show Kikujiro to my girlfriend, I think she'd adore it

johnny_ultimate

Links234 wrote: »

I really need to watch one of his films again, was a big fan, but I don't think I've seen anything since Zatoichi?

Nope, he's done a few, although they didn't really receive much coverage around these parts. Takeshii's was the only one to receive a decent DVD release (really must watch it again when I've seen the rest of his stuff - its highly self-referential). Outrage is just out on DVD, and - I'm actually pretty surprised to hear this! - its sequel is currently in production.

Forgot to mention Dolls actually - another powerful and effective film from the man. Reminded me of Kurosawa's Dreams in a few regards.

Links234

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Nope, he's done a few, although they didn't really receive much coverage around these parts. Takeshii's was the only one to receive a decent DVD release (really must watch it again when I've seen the rest of his stuff - its highly self-referential). Outrage is just out on DVD, and - I'm actually pretty surprised to hear this! - its sequel is currently in production.

Forgot to mention Dolls actually - another powerful and effective film from the man. Reminded me of Kurosawa's Dreams in a few regards.

oh yeah, I know he's done a few since zatoichi, just saying I haven't seen them.

I got this box set a few years back: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Takeshi-Kitano-Collection-Boilingpoint-Sonatine/dp/B001DN7IUI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326070724&sr=8-1

I didn't really like Violent Cop or Boiling Point that much, Sonatine was great though, and I haven't watched A Scene At The Sea, Kids Return, or Getting Any? yet, so I really must do at some point. guess I had just completely forgotten about them until I saw this thread

Dolls was really good, had me crying in parts so did Kikujiro though

I still think either either Hana-bi or Zatoichi would be my favourites of his

johnny_ultimate

Sorry, my fault, read seen as 'done' for some reason :pac:

I'm working through the same boxset at the moment, hence my current interest in the great man

Links234

its a pretty cool box set, but I think it kinda shows him finding his feet in a lot of ways. sonatine was the earliest film of his that I felt his style was really coming out.

what I love the most is that he says so much without having that much dialogue at all.

Syferus

In the west he's mostly known as a director or as the person who Takeshi's Castle is named after, but he's got a reputation as a bit of a media whore in his own country, he's done everything from late-night chat shows to gameshows and stand-up, but easily his most fantastic creation was his Famicom game, Takeshi no Chousenjou (or Takeshi's Challenge, it was never released outside Japan), which was creatively fed by his apparent hatred for video games:

The world of Famicom got a little more interesting at the end of 1986, when Taito released Takeshi no Chousenjou, an action-adventure game with lots of creative input provided (allegedly while drunk) by famous comedian/actor "Beat" Takeshi Kitano. Few games can hold claim to its completely bizarre settings, urban legends (the entire development team supposedly left the company after finishing the game, but nobody knows who the staff was anyway) and true legends (Kitano ransacked the office of a tabloid magazine the day before the game came out). Somehow, it managed to sell about 800,000 copies, though who can say how many of those went right back to the store.

In spite of the text on the box warning the player that they'll need to use every fiber of their gaming skills to attempt Takeshi's challenge, you didn't know quite what to expect from Takeshi no Chousenjou. On the outside, it's merely an awful game: flat, vague graphics, one or two pieces of "music," and the general feeling that Taito couldn't possibly have made this. And then, as you play more of it, it becomes clear that this is pure evil. The basic outline has you playing as a disenchanted salaryman who decides to abandon his everyday life and seek faraway buried treasure, but first has to get out of town, and one of the first tasks to do so is to sing karaoke at the nearby bar. Constantly -- the patrons ask for several encores -- and perfectly, because if the game doesn't like your performance, you have to start that all over. And later, you mustn't touch the controller for a real-world hour so the treasure map can appear on a sheet of paper (and you have to have beaten up the man who gave it to you beforehand or else you can't get to the ending).

The game's intense hang glider shoot-em-up level -- where one miscalculation can completely screw you -- eventually leads to the fabled island where the player finds the treasure... and the ending?: Kitano's caricature basically saying "good job." And if the player bothers to wait five minutes, the comedian mocks them one last time by asking why they took the thing so seriously.

Your average kid wasn't so keen to Chousenjou's "message," so you got a lot of exasperated youth trying to figure it out as they would a normal game. A strategy guide was published, but it wasn't enough -- players were still getting stuck and were flooding the publisher's phone lines with desperate complaints. A second volume followed, but even with the knowledge of every part of the game, you still had to do everything exactly right, and most players conceded victory to Kitano. You won't find any other game like it; one that practically forced its way into Famicom history, much in the way a young, belligerent Beat Takeshi would.

http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=8803279&publicUserId=4547783

To say he's a character is putting it very mildly.

Giruilla

I've seen a lot of his films and have to say Brother was my favoutite. It didn't get the best reviews or anything, but its just so entertaining. You get this warped view of America from a Japanese eye. The seen where they ask Takeshi's 2nd to prove his loyalty is such a brilliant scene.

Wasn't such a big fan of Outrage.. to be honest I can't even remember that much about it which says a lot. Suprisingly Outrage 2 is due for release this year!

bnt

hana-bi is up there in my top 10 films by any director. The main character Nishi (Takeshi) is a cop who can only express his feelings through action - bordering on the autistic, if you ask me. His wife is the only person who seems to understand him and accept him, and she's dying, so he feels he genuinely has nothing left to lose. There's a sense of inevitability about the direction of the film, but that doesn't make it predictable.

This is Kitano literally using his art as an outlet for his personal problems: he was badly injured in a motorbike crash which left his face partly paralysed, unable to show his emotions as he used to - a trait central to his character. In the film there's another cop, Horibe, disabled after a shooting for which Nishi blames himself, since he had been away visiting his wife in hospital. So Horibe buys art materials - paints, canvases, etc. - and starts painting. The paintings we see in the film were painted by Kitano himself, as part of his therapy after the accident - including one about suicide.

Sanjuro

Awesome director, great actor, all round legend.

johnny_ultimate

I remember considering picking up Brother a few years ago, but heard some very mixed things about it. Still, I'm on a yakuza movie binge at the moment for a project I'm working on, so must check it out soon.

I think the fact that he's such a fascinating contradiction is what makes him such a compelling, curious voice. It's basically like if Tommy Tiernan or - heaven forbid - Ryan Turbidy moonlighted as a highly ambitious, artistically accomplished arthouse film director. Yet it's his crowdpleasing side that means even in his most sombre, lyrical films there are bursts of great warmth and humour.

Technocentral

His is the best performance in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, the ending always brings a tear to my eye:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWx8o5FI-Us

Links234

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I remember considering picking up Brother a few years ago, but heard some very mixed things about it. Still, I'm on a yakuza movie binge at the moment for a project I'm working on, so must check it out soon.

Brother really isnt that bad at all. I know some people didn't like it, and it does have its flaws, but its a really good watch anyway

Links234

Got around to watching zatoichi again last night. Such a weird and wonderful film, I love the kinda quirky musical bits like the guys working in the field in rhythm, or the big dance sequence at the end. It's weird touches like that that kitano brings to the table that makes it so special.

johnny_ultimate

Watched Kids Return tonight. Not his best, and it takes a while for it to settle on a pace, but I thought there were some fascinating story payoffs later on. Basically a film about inevitability and broken dreams. Very interesting little film all-in-all, and one of the most bittersweet coming-of-age films I've come across.