Post by caucasoididiot on Jul 2, 2011 2:39:55 GMT -5
Kitano "Beat" Takeshi is iconic in Japanese pop culture these days, and really more broadly. You may know him from films like Battle Royale or Johnny Mnemonic (I've seen neither but have the latter, just haven't gotten around to it). He's certainly in my top three working Japanese directors. I'll just mention his work as I've found it to date, in part to suggest it to those of you who might be interested but (more selfishly) to get recommendations for myself.
Kitano entered the '80s as half of the popular standup team "The Two Beats," along with Beat Kiyoshi. His acting debut came in 1982 with Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (戦場のメリークリスマス, Senjou no Meri Kurisumasu, literally "A Battlefield Merry Christmas"). In this Oshima Nagisa film, Takeshi was deliberately cast against type. While his comedy was admittedly edgy, he was still a funnyman. Cast as the senior sergeant in a wartime prison camp, the opening scene has him brutally slashing a prisoner across the face with his stick, a deliberate attempt by Itami to shock Japanese audiences.
This is a film I highly recommend if you can catch it. But, limiting it to Takeshi's character, he represents the Japanese common man and his relationship to Sakamoto Ryuichi's militarist Captain Yonoi (based partly on homosexual right-wing militarist/novelist Mishima Yukio). As Oshima has Colonel Lawrence say of the Japanese: "They're an anxious people, who can do nothing individually, and so they went mad, en masse . . . I just wish they'd stop hitting me." Takeshi's Sergeant Hara represents a man caught up in that madness, and though he can't regain his life he does regain his soul and sanity.
Sadly, as Japanese video rental stores have switched from VHS to DVD this title has become very rare. I'm afraid the nation, as a whole, wishes not to face the nasty truths this movie deals in.
Here's a decent vid based in Sakamoto's great music (but beware spoilers). Long time members might recognize Bowie's Major Celliers character as a long-time avatar of mine. This is one of my top films, partly for very personal reasons, but it's a fine and classic film you should check out as well.
Lawrence: So, Sergeant Hara, you're human after all. Hara-gunsou, anata mo yappari ningen da.
Takeshi was already far more of a Japanese tarento, a staple in TV shows and commercials, than movie star, and while that has lasted the Japanese themselves are lukewarm to his films. Presently he's plugging an English school (a competitor of those I worked for). I s'pose that's OK.*
He got more movie roles, including the lead in Kinji Fukasaku's 1989 Violent Cop (その男、凶暴につき, Sono Otoko, Kyoubou Tsuki. more literally, "That Man, The Violent One"). Annoyed at working around Kitano's TV schedule, Fukasaku quit and Kitano took over for his directorial debut. The result might be called a Japanese Dirty Harry . . . much as Coleman Francis might be called a skydiving documentarian. This movie is dark. By the end you may feel like slashing your belly, but somehow it will seem beautifully artistic to do so.
Kitano has been called a "Japanese Robert Mitchum," and that certainly fits. The man absolutely has a presence, though his modern, craggy features stem from having gotten drunk and ridden his scooter face first.
The next of his films I have seen is Boiling Point (３－４Ｘ１０月, San tai Yon X Jugatsu, "3 to 4 in October"; it's a Japanese baseball term, anyone who can explain it, please do). Takeshi sort of fell into a tough guy pattern, the "against type" of Christmas retroactively becoming "type." This film, which Kitano wrote and directed, deals with something I've observed in the Japanese. Their equanimity is only relative: as Americans we blow off steam almost as quickly as we build it up, they hold it and hold it and hold it and then BLOW IT OFF! This story of kids getting involved in a yakuza vendetta explores that idea. Heh heh . . . if you know how the safeties on a 1911 A1 work, the ending will be darkly hilarious. If not, just enjoy the spectacular visuals and fascinatingly twisty storyline:
But Kitano is not content to simply repeat himself. In Kikujiro's Summer (菊次郎の夏, Kikujiro no Natsu) he plays with his tough guy image. This is the story of a young Japanese boy living with his grandmother. His father is dead and his mother lives far away. Takeshi is a sort of nebbishy failed yakuza in this film, ordered by his wife to accompany the kid to visit his mom. "And don't take him anywhere strange!" This is the sort of script that a lot of Japanese directors would have taken to chokingly sappy lengths, but Kitano demonstrates that he may be the inheritor not only of the Mitchum but the Kurosawa magic. This film is highly recommended (and my thanks to FriendlyChicken for recommending it to me):
Sorry the subs ain't English. The English subs are pretty good, but watch for an untranslatable moment: the kid initially calls Kitano's character "ojisan." Means "uncle," but it's what a kid would call any middle-aged stranger. Watch for when he switches to "ojichan," which is a fairly untranslatable endearment.
His remake of the Zatoichi films is also not to be missed. How can you not love differently abled-swordplay, gambling, gender-bending and tap dancing?
Most recently I caught Takeshis'. Now, a lot of Kitano fans hated this. Long-time fans found it overly self-referential . . . maybe the fact that I haven't seen the likes of Sonatine helped. It is weird . . . Beat Takeshi, superstar, intertwines his life with Kitano, the loser he might have been. Think a dark, Japanese episode of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and you may get the general idea. I loved it:
This title may also be interpreted to mean "Take Dies," and reportedly Kitano means to shuck off his former image (which he has self-parodied here) and move to a new level. I'm anxiously waiting to see where he goes from here.
I have several other discs I haven't yet watched, but am looking forward to. Sadly, the following two are not among them:
As I say, I'd recommend everything I've seen, especially when Kitano directs. I'm curious what others think.
*His comprehension seems good: 「ファッキン・ジャップ」分かる、馬鹿野郎！
Kitano entered the '80s as half of the popular standup team "The Two Beats," along with Beat Kiyoshi. His acting debut came in 1982 with Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (戦場のメリークリスマス, Senjou no Meri Kurisumasu, literally "A Battlefield Merry Christmas"). In this Oshima Nagisa film, Takeshi was deliberately cast against type. While his comedy was admittedly edgy, he was still a funnyman. Cast as the senior sergeant in a wartime prison camp, the opening scene has him brutally slashing a prisoner across the face with his stick, a deliberate attempt by Itami to shock Japanese audiences.
This is a film I highly recommend if you can catch it. But, limiting it to Takeshi's character, he represents the Japanese common man and his relationship to Sakamoto Ryuichi's militarist Captain Yonoi (based partly on homosexual right-wing militarist/novelist Mishima Yukio). As Oshima has Colonel Lawrence say of the Japanese: "They're an anxious people, who can do nothing individually, and so they went mad, en masse . . . I just wish they'd stop hitting me." Takeshi's Sergeant Hara represents a man caught up in that madness, and though he can't regain his life he does regain his soul and sanity.
Sadly, as Japanese video rental stores have switched from VHS to DVD this title has become very rare. I'm afraid the nation, as a whole, wishes not to face the nasty truths this movie deals in.
Here's a decent vid based in Sakamoto's great music (but beware spoilers). Long time members might recognize Bowie's Major Celliers character as a long-time avatar of mine. This is one of my top films, partly for very personal reasons, but it's a fine and classic film you should check out as well.
Lawrence: So, Sergeant Hara, you're human after all. Hara-gunsou, anata mo yappari ningen da.
Takeshi was already far more of a Japanese tarento, a staple in TV shows and commercials, than movie star, and while that has lasted the Japanese themselves are lukewarm to his films. Presently he's plugging an English school (a competitor of those I worked for). I s'pose that's OK.*
He got more movie roles, including the lead in Kinji Fukasaku's 1989 Violent Cop (その男、凶暴につき, Sono Otoko, Kyoubou Tsuki. more literally, "That Man, The Violent One"). Annoyed at working around Kitano's TV schedule, Fukasaku quit and Kitano took over for his directorial debut. The result might be called a Japanese Dirty Harry . . . much as Coleman Francis might be called a skydiving documentarian. This movie is dark. By the end you may feel like slashing your belly, but somehow it will seem beautifully artistic to do so.
Kitano has been called a "Japanese Robert Mitchum," and that certainly fits. The man absolutely has a presence, though his modern, craggy features stem from having gotten drunk and ridden his scooter face first.
The next of his films I have seen is Boiling Point (３－４Ｘ１０月, San tai Yon X Jugatsu, "3 to 4 in October"; it's a Japanese baseball term, anyone who can explain it, please do). Takeshi sort of fell into a tough guy pattern, the "against type" of Christmas retroactively becoming "type." This film, which Kitano wrote and directed, deals with something I've observed in the Japanese. Their equanimity is only relative: as Americans we blow off steam almost as quickly as we build it up, they hold it and hold it and hold it and then BLOW IT OFF! This story of kids getting involved in a yakuza vendetta explores that idea. Heh heh . . . if you know how the safeties on a 1911 A1 work, the ending will be darkly hilarious. If not, just enjoy the spectacular visuals and fascinatingly twisty storyline:
But Kitano is not content to simply repeat himself. In Kikujiro's Summer (菊次郎の夏, Kikujiro no Natsu) he plays with his tough guy image. This is the story of a young Japanese boy living with his grandmother. His father is dead and his mother lives far away. Takeshi is a sort of nebbishy failed yakuza in this film, ordered by his wife to accompany the kid to visit his mom. "And don't take him anywhere strange!" This is the sort of script that a lot of Japanese directors would have taken to chokingly sappy lengths, but Kitano demonstrates that he may be the inheritor not only of the Mitchum but the Kurosawa magic. This film is highly recommended (and my thanks to FriendlyChicken for recommending it to me):
Sorry the subs ain't English. The English subs are pretty good, but watch for an untranslatable moment: the kid initially calls Kitano's character "ojisan." Means "uncle," but it's what a kid would call any middle-aged stranger. Watch for when he switches to "ojichan," which is a fairly untranslatable endearment.
His remake of the Zatoichi films is also not to be missed. How can you not love differently abled-swordplay, gambling, gender-bending and tap dancing?
Most recently I caught Takeshis'. Now, a lot of Kitano fans hated this. Long-time fans found it overly self-referential . . . maybe the fact that I haven't seen the likes of Sonatine helped. It is weird . . . Beat Takeshi, superstar, intertwines his life with Kitano, the loser he might have been. Think a dark, Japanese episode of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and you may get the general idea. I loved it:
This title may also be interpreted to mean "Take Dies," and reportedly Kitano means to shuck off his former image (which he has self-parodied here) and move to a new level. I'm anxiously waiting to see where he goes from here.
I have several other discs I haven't yet watched, but am looking forward to. Sadly, the following two are not among them:
As I say, I'd recommend everything I've seen, especially when Kitano directs. I'm curious what others think.
*His comprehension seems good: 「ファッキン・ジャップ」分かる、馬鹿野郎！
