Takeshi Kitano

francesco

Minerva Estassi
I have finally seen Dolls, which I missed at the cinema, and i'm overwhelmed. I really have no words for descrive the beauty of this movie. Dolls, Kikujiiro, Sonatine, all the others... the word Genius is overused but Kitano is a Genius. And a poet. And a comic TV presenter also...
 
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rob_giri

Well-known member
Brother!

You have to see Brother, its fantastic. former-yakuza-in-LA- thing.

and Battle Royale...

...and Zatoichi....
 

LRJP!

(Between Blank & Boring)
I wanted to catch Dolls at the cinema on it's orignal release, but they showed it like three times up here - i still haven't seen it so i'm going to have watch it squashed on TV via DVD.

How about those paintings in Hana-Bi; he did them!?! The guy's a legend.
 
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cortempond

Active member
Kitano as Genius

Kitano is a genius, Hana-Bi, Boiling Point and Sonatine are masterpieces - I can never get tired of watching them. Brother is a great film as well, the fish out of water meets Yakuza film is a great concept. His character in that film seems an extension of the one in Sonatine, a person who is weary of his life as a Yakuza, but is unable to exist in the world, because all he knows is the Yakuza. His character is Boiling Point is funny as hell, (maybe taking from his comedy experience) because his behavior borders on absurdity.

Scene At The Sea, Kids Return and Violent Cop are also must sees.

Dolls seems to be style over substance - I agree with the person who said it left him cold. I definitely do not have to see it again. Zatoichi was a nice tribute to the series and genre but it didn't add much to it.
 

francesco

Minerva Estassi
Disagree, i have seen all Kitano and Dolls is for me one of the best. And yes is cold but makes you cry extactily and bitterly. For me is on the same level of Violent Cop, Sonatine, Hana-Bi and Kikujiiro, but very different from each one (even if totally 100% Kitano). Brother also i loved, and the last one Zaitochi, who was also very funny if a bit more conventional (but only a bit really: tip tap anyone?)
 

zhao

there are no accidents
correction

correction: Zatoichi was not Beat's project. he was a hired gun, and followed someone else's direction. I thought it was terrible compared to the original series: bad acting, bad colors, bad story... the ending was kind of funny I guess.

I can't wait to see Dolls. is it a good film to bring a girl to?
 

Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
Pretty sure you're wrong there. Zatoichi was, as far as I'm aware, totally directed by Kitano- he more or less was presuaded to do it by the families of the people involved in the originals, which meant he had licence to do it his way. The tap dancing routine at the end, which is a massive part of the film whether you love it or hate it, was Takeshi's sole idea. I guess other people might have been involved, but Kitano was the director, even if he was in a light hearted move-

http://www.kitanotakeshi.com/resources/raynszatoichi.html


Im enjoying revisiting Kitano's films at the moment, particularly Sonatine and Hana-Bi, as I'm writing a dissertation on him. He enjoys a strange relationship with Japanese Yakuza films- taking lots of their conventions like the objectification of women, but tries to subvert the violence of those films, making it mundane rather than heroic.

There's clearly something contemplative and Ozu like about his films, not merely as a stylistic quirk but as a deep level of detachment from his character- lot of wandering through empty spaces, with the hero's eyes in Sonatine only meeting other peoples once Takeshi is master of his domain on the beach. There's no gang ethos here at all, it's bitter alienating stuff.

However, after these films he reached a difficult juncture as he wanted to make films about how people find a way to live rather than how they fine a way to die. This is tricky, as intitially I thought his films have little to give except contemplative space and an ironic juxtaposition of Samurai values with mundane modern day life. Mind you, perhaps Kikijuro is his most radical film as it shows masculinity (a father) beset not by violence, but by sheer diplacement and not knowing what to do. Whereas American gang films tend to stage a rediscovery of innocence (Jimmy Cagney shouting "On top of the world, ma!" as he kills himself), and are essentially male-melodramas, Kitano's films, both cops and Kids, seems to be emphasise a male personnas radically detached from society.

So, do people reckon his family films are as good as his cops-and-killers ones?
 

zhao

there are no accidents
I remember very clearly reading in an interview where he said his role in Zatoichi was merely a hired director to work on someone else's project with someone else's feel. I mean come on! It doesn't feel like one of his movies at all! In Japan Zatoichi I'm sure is an all too familiar and even banal character, so the irreverent last scene was probably Kitano's idea, but the rest of the film... I seriously doubt he had the freedom to do what he wanted.

I've just seen the Miike Tokyo Underground trilogy, and ... fuck I have to go sorry
 
I was totally overwhelmed when I first saw Hana Bi, I needed to watch it a lot of times again before I could make out which was my response towards the film... until I read that everything -the story, the paintings, the music- had been a consequence of Kitano's nearly mortal accident, which by the way radically transformed not only his physical appearance but arguably his acting and his attitude towards the world. That may be why, after Hana Bi, he started filming stories about characters who want to find ways to live. But before Kikujiru and all that, he needed to express his mixed feelings towards life in Hana Bi. I still water at the incredible way in which he expressed his own contradictory feelings (do I want to live? do I want to TRY to live? is it worthwile to make any effort? is death the ultimate artistic action?) in a film that is a transgression of yakuza films. No wonder all the film is structured around the dychotomy beauty- ugliness. I think the title translates literally as Fire Flowers (ie fireworks) which is a perfect title to summarize the tone of the film, of course, fire is ugliness, the horror, and flowers stand for beautiness. Think also about the paintings (yes, he drew them... while he was at hospital recovering from his accident!) they are drawings of wild animals with beautiful flowers instead of heads... Wow, I could endlessly talk about this film, definitely one of the best films of the last 15 years!
 

Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
One of the really weird things about that film, from reading about it, is that Kitano himself felt the artists deciding to carry on living was somehow cowardly compared to his own character's heroic suicide. A rather nihilistic view, really, but he's a contradictory man, and I think the bravado of this macho deathwish is not entirely serious.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
Sonatine is good also. childish and silly and sad and brutal and noble and honest and strangely poetic.
 
I think that, in Hanabi, the suicide takes place because it's the logical end for the character if we think in terms of the almost stereotypical role he had been playing as a yakuza in the previous years. Perhaps he just needed to get read of too many things in his art and his life, and the suicide in Hanabi could represent a full stop in his career.
By the way, I appreciate Dolls, because it insists in a topic that had been latent in all his films, the dialogue between traditional and modern Japan, and he does that in a very unconventional way,through a fractured narration, that works on a symbolic rather than on a narrative level. But I had problems with Zatoichi, it's an amusing film, but I didn't feel I was watching a true Kitano film
 

francesco

Minerva Estassi
In Venice Film festival was shown Takeshi last movie: the title of the film is "Takeshi's" and the two main caracters, called one Takeshi and one Kitano, are both played by guess who. It is a sort of Kitano "8 e 1/2"? Seem from reviews that the movie is totally strange, somewhat almost incomprensible but as usual very beautiful.
Kitano declared this is his last violent movie, the end of a cicle, his next films will be very differents (remember, Kitano is the most famous tv comic actor of Japan....)
 
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