Takeshi Kitano

Actually, in Japan he was always a stand-up comedian and TV host. He surprised a lot of people here when he started making films.

His son is actually a huge Momus fan, and we were supposed to meet for dinner recently, but I had to postpone it.

I think a loty of his stuff is over-rated - but Hana-bi and Sonatine are the best of a variable bunch.

Kitano as blind swordsman? Musical numbers?! OMG WTF

I kind of suspect that he's out of steam. Brother was mostly terrible, Dolls mostly got terrible notices (the reviews I trust most had little good to say about it)....

My favorite Kitano film is, by far, A Scene at the Sea.

I finally saw 'Dolls' last night and while I was seriously considering turning it off for the first 45 minutes, I am now thinking of buying the DVD.
Slightly corny and maybe over-aesthetic, but the four seasons across Japan angle somehow mesmerized me.

I love this man so much.

Takeshis = awesome. totally baffled as to why this never got any decent US press and/or I never heard of it when it was released. It definitely has his unique stamp on it but it's like his version of Mulholland Drive/Inland Empire crossed with Taxi Driver/King of Comedy. Lots of beautiful imagery, clever editing, constant blending of fantasy with reality, a bit of a meta-commentary on celebrity, violence, and identity. Genius.

musical number with giant dancing caterpillar and DJ mixing/scratching a woman's breasts

endless scenes of takeshit repeatedly shooting every other character in the movie in various combinations

actors in multiple roles

Have his last three even made it to DVD in the US?

Zatoichi definitely did... pretty sure about Kikujiro too, cuz I rented that from Lost Weekend. Lost Weekend did NOT have "Takeshis'" tho, and I had to order it from Amazon and it is definitely not a US release (box and menus are all in Japanese). Criminal this guy doesn't have US distro.

His son is actually a huge Momus fan, and we were supposed to meet for dinner recently, but I had to postpone it.

oh wait I see he's already made two other films after this, as part of some trilogy

wow wtf

i saw a theatrical adaptation of Dolls a few days ago. It was pretty good.

God fucking damn, I remember when C4 screened some of his movies, it served as a pretty big intro into 'foreign' film. Its curious that no one could bother to screen his latest ones, apart from 'Zaitoichi'.

Was 'Dolls' given a cinematic screening over in the UK? Pretty sure none of these 'new' ones have...fuck changing fashions and all that blah.

the woman who wrote the stage version saw a screening of it in glasgow in 2002, though I don't know if that was a proper release or some one-off special.

I don't think Dolls was released at all here in the US. Basically if it doesn't involve him playing a yakuza, apparently no one in America cares.

ach, i didn't know there were so many newer films of his I hadn't seen.

Watching Takeshis just now, this is good, going to track down the other two films in this trilogy.

Achilles and the Tortoise is a good film until Takeshi turns up half way through.

love this guy

i really like the way he makes fun of his yakuza films in this when he shoots the cicadas and then his girlfriend on the Okinawa film set.

so he made another yakuza movie - just came out on DVD. anyone seen it?

Watching Takeshis just now, this is good, going to track down the other two films in this trilogy.

Takeshis is great, hilarious self-parody. how are the other two...? have found some of his comedies inexplicable, I'm just not familiar enough with the cultural references

takeshis is probably the best of his recent films. outrage is a bore, mostly.

his great films were all made 1990–94, basically. to me it's a downhill slide from there, with a few films (fireworks, kikujiro) much better than the others.

scene at the sea and boiling point 4eva.

i think getting any is hilarious even without understanding all of the references of japanese popular culture. and i don't find it as anomolous as most critics do -- they saw it as this art-film guy making a zucker-abrahams-zucker movie or something. but i see a lot of stylistic and thematic traits in common with e.g. boiling point and sonatine.

his great films were all made 1990–94, basically. to me it's a downhill slide from there, with a few films (fireworks, kikujiro) much better than the others.

not really gonna disagree with this, fireworks and kikujiro def best of the "later period" I guess. altho I did think zatoichi was a lot of fun.

'outrage' is pretty great, still retains a lot of the humor from his films but it's downplayed a bit (and the quieter, peaceful passages from something like 'sonatine' or 'fireworks' are gone) and the viciousness is amped up a lot. some pretty gruesome shit, and also this isn't a movie for those who fear going to the dentist. i did like the super-cruel "joke" played on one of the lead characters near the end when he's just "going for a ride."

"Outrage" was pretty solid, although a little more monotonous and one-note than some of his more nuanced yakuza outings. at a certain point I got tired of yet another meeting of guys in suits that ends with someone being beaten up/shot/tortured. Yakuzas sure take a lot of meetings. Anyone seen the sequel?

I really liked Beyond Outrage, haven't seen the first one. It's nice and slow and methodical, until finally it explodes. Filmed really good, lots of great scenes and shots.

his films always look great. he has a penchant for making Japan look/feel like a very quiet, lonely place

http://www.japantrends.com/japan-trends/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/takeshi-kitano-beat-yuriko-koike-donald-trump-4.jpg

Haha

there's something terrifingly real about takeshi kitano's trump pic.twitter.com/S8QxlBXCDr

— ▀▀▀▀▀▀ (@immolations) September 8, 2016

Watching “Beyond Outrage” now. (I watched the first one Sunday.)

The crooked police detective in these movies is such a slimy dick

I like the Outrage films. Very by the numbers yakuza stuff but it works.

i should watch them. theyre not particularly highly rated. feel like takeshi used to have a lot of "world cinema" cred and has sort of faded - starting with takeshis

Watching the third one now.

It’s astonishing how much really dumb mistakes fuel the action in these movies, just what seems like total amateur hour stuff from people who should know better

But that’s how real life is too right

Crosses, double crosses, damn

Maybe it’s dumb to talk yakuza business in bars and restaurants, dudes

yeah, keep it to the scruffy looking office buildings that you own perhaps for tax reasons?

i should watch them. theyre not particularly highly rated. feel like takeshi used to have a lot of "world cinema" cred and has sort of faded - starting with takeshis

Don't think there's much in the Outrage series for world cinema fans to enjoy frankly, it's genre cinema for genre fans, while his 90's yakuza stuff always had an artsier vibe. I would judge decline of interest to have started with his US film Brother?

i like to think Takeshi just doesn't care

It’s hard for me to compare these to other Japanese cinema because I haven’t seen much up to now. (And these are the first yakuza movies I’ve ever seen.)

The frost two Outrage movies are on Kanopy and I stumbled on them over the weekend while fishing for something unknown to watch.

i like to think Takeshi just doesn't care

Oh, I'm certain he doesn't! Sucks for us that it's more difficult to access his stuff tho.

oh yeah very much so

oh yeah, he definitely doesnt care, and more power to him.

Now, “Hana-bi”.

i liked this anecdote:

I once heard a story from Japan. One day, a taxi driver met a middle-aged male passenger. After getting in the car, the passenger pointed to the Porsche in front of them and asked, “Isn’t that car beautiful?”

The taxi driver said, “That goes without saying. Porsches are obviously beautiful!” Looking extremely pleased, the passenger then said, “That’s my car!”

The driver responded with confusion, “If it’s your car, then why aren’t you driving it?”

The passenger said, “Are you stupid or what! If I were driving it, how would I be able to appreciate its beauty?”

This passenger was, in fact, the famous actor Kitano Takeshi. As it turned out, Takeshi, in all his fame and riches, had purchased the newest model of Porsche but had become saddened by his inability to see himself proudly driving the car. Only then did he think of having a friend drive his car while he took a taxi; this way, he could see his elegant Porsche.

beat takeshi, confirmed car cuck?

I love that story

https://www.bfi.org.uk/interviews/takeshi-kitano-kubi

Oh wow nice.

He has a new short film up on prime too.

Cool. I thought of Gohatto as soon as I started reading the interview.

Hope to catch this one at some point

Gohatto rules.

Had it on a double feature with, of all things, Goodbye Dragon Inn.

Double feature dvd that is.

Nice to have him back with something a little less meta than of late

NB I love the meta stuff as much as I unreservedly love the rest of his work