Takeshi Kitano

[ElPandaRoyal]

mmm, nah. Brother isn't so great.

It has some great moments.

[(kelvin)]

I saw dolls yesterday.
Though it was very good, I was expecting more from the reviews that I had read here.
Photography is excelent, it is, visually, the years' most beautiful film.

What was missing was, I think, the kitano dark humour and graphic violence (because it was really violent emotionally). I sure hope that kitano hasn't matured that much

I heard that his wife died before he made the film.

I never regarded his violence as immature, by the way. On the contrary.
Has anyone ever noticed that in nearly all of his films there is a beach at the end? And in nearly all of his films he commits suicide.

[Sleepless]

Zatoichi is a great film. Saw it in the cinema, then bought the DVD as soon as I got home. Thank-you, ebay   I've also seen Brother - didn't think it was as good, really want to see Dolls soon. Which others of his films should I track down?

[rustinglass]

I never regarded his violence as immature, by the way. On the contrary.
Has anyone ever noticed that in nearly all of his films there is a beach at the end? And in nearly all of his films he commits suicide.

And the women in his films are almost always retarded... was his wife retarted?

[samsong]

Leave it P(ubrick) to come through with the best films... he's the only one that mentioned Kikujiro in this thread.  Anyway I've seen four of Kitano's films -- Sonatine, Kikujiro, Brother, and Zatoichi -- and I love the man (well, I didn't like Brother).  As suggested, Kikujiro is the best of the three and one of my favorite films.  Here he combines his dark/off beat humor with absolute beauty/humanity and it's amazing to see unfold.  Highly, highly recommended.

Zatoichi is fun fun fun... and fun.  Kitano's reworking is his "coolest" film in terms of style, though he went for the new special effects tha I assume is in Japan (cg blood and guts) that don't look good at all.  It's easy to overlook though because of the energy the film radiates of.  Zatoichi exhibits great filmmaking; it's almost like his Kill Bill.  I know the way I've been describing it so far makes it seem like Kitano sold out but his stamp is all over this film; it's most definitely his.  It may not be as poignant or "serious" as his other stuff but he makes up for all of that in the cinematic experience he provides with what has to be his  most entertaining and enjoyable movie.  I'm not sure if there's any truth to this but it seems like he was influenced by Dancer in the Dark... you'll see.  Which brings me to the sound... awesome awesome awesome.  Given that Zatoichi is a blind samurai it seems appropriate that the sound get a lot of attention to detail, which it most definitely gets.  The film's end is one of my favorite scenes ever... I saw the trailer and read a bit about it so I was anticpating it but it completely defies expectations.  Honestly it contains the euphoria of Singin' in the Rain, ending the film in a very sweet note.  I don't think I've had this much fun at the movies in a long time (well, I saw it on DVD... must go see it in theater, though)

[MacGuffin]

Dolls Trailer

[Ravi]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050902/film_nm/arts_venice_kitano_dc

Japan's Kitano surprises Venice with wacky new film
By Clara Ferreira-Marques

VENICE (Reuters) - Japanese cult director Takeshi Kitano baffled and enthralled Venice on Friday with the premiere of "Takeshis,"' a surreal send-up of his eclectic career which weaves together the lives of a TV celebrity and his lookalike.

The surprise addition to a list of 19 films vying for the Venice Film Festival's top Golden Lion prize is a bewildering jaunt from smoky mah-jong parlors and noodle bars to showdowns between gun-slinging yakuza gangsters.

Both the TV personality -- "Beat" Takeshi, the name he takes as an actor -- and the frustrated store attendant doppelganger, Takeshi Kitano, are played by the actor-director himself.

Cinema-goers are likely to be thrown off by Kitano's multiple personas and emerge confused from what the director himself describes as "a multi-layered Baumkuchen cake." But, he says with a smile, that is beside the point.

"I want the spectators to feel like they are in another dimension of reality. I don't want my audience to understand every detail," said Kitano, who won the Golden Lion in 1997 for his film "Hana-Bi," or "Fireworks."

"It's like one of my characters says, 'don't think too much, it's just a film'," he told Reuters.

The film borrows heavily from Kitano's gangster characters and scenes in earlier movies, from his debut "Violent Cop" to "Zatoichi," which won the Venice Silver Lion in 2003.

But this time, the bitter comedy is stronger than his customary bursts of violence.

Kitano says he hoped to use the film to close off the type of cinema that has made the prolific artist a cult name outside Japan, where he remains best known for his TV work.

"It is a funeral for the genres that I explored over the past dozen movies. In a sense, it is the last of a series," he said. "In Japanese, the title sounds like 'Takeshi's funeral'."

Now, the man who got his break as part of comedy duo "Two Beat," says he wants to have a go at the classics.

"After all, cinema has been around for more than a century. There are many great masters," said Kitano. "I feel like doing a very classical movie now, to challenge the giants."

[Pubrick]

"After all, cinema has been around for more than a century. There are many great masters," said Kitano. "I feel like doing a very classical movie now, to challenge the giants."

wow, he's like a typical action hero in a scene where u think he's given all he has and the bad guys are laughing and then he says "that's when i got angry" and starts to really kick ass.

[pete]