Takeshi Kitano
11 December 2009 – 2 April 2010
Director, actor, author, comedian, artist and cult television personality, Takeshi Kitano has forged an original and idiosyncratic film practice unique in contemporary cinema. Drawing on genre cinema and Japanese consumer culture, Kitano’s yakuza (Japanese mafia) films and self-reflexive comedies blend action cinema with a strong sense of the absurd in contemporary life. Kitano fuses nihilism with humour, violent excess with deadpan characterisation, and uses exaggerated choreographies of movement and dark comedy to punctuate otherwise silent and static sequences. Beginning his career as a comic presenter on Japanese TV, his legendary alter ego, ‘Beat Takeshi’, is one of the most identifiable pop culture icons in Japan, and Kitano continues to appear on long-running television shows.
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Sono otoko, kyobo ni tsuki (Violent Cop) 1989 Ages 15+
8.00pm Fri 11 Dec 2009 / Cinema A
35MM, COLOUR, MONO, 103 MINUTES, JAPAN, JAPANESE (ENGLISH SUBTITLES) / DIRECTOR: TAKESHI KITANO / SCRIPT: HISASHI NOZAWA, TAKESHI KITANO / CINEMATOGRAPHER: YASUSHI SASAKIBARA / EDITOR: NOBUTAKE KAMIYA / PRINT SOURCE: THE JAPAN FOUNDATION / RIGHTS: SHOCHIKU
In Violent Cop, actor-director Takeshi Kitano begins his exploration of the fallen hero, a narrative troupe which runs throughout his filmmaking career. The film’s opening scene follows a group of high school students who beat a homeless man for entertainment. Kitano in the lead as police detective Azuma invades the home of one of the boys and beats a confession out of him, vividly capturing the dramatic moment when his character crosses the line. Employing a spare style of acting and a masterful use of silence, counterpointed by absurdist humour, Kitano shows us the decline of the heroic protagonist at the precise moment he falls from grace and his struggle to follow a path toward redemption.
3-4 x jugatsu (Boiling Point) 1990 Ages 15+
8.00pm Fri 18 Dec 2009 / Cinema A
35MM, COLOUR, MONO, 96 MINUTES, JAPAN, JAPANESE (ENGLISH SUBTITLES) / DIRECTOR/SCRIPT: TAKESHI KITANO / CINEMATOGRAPHER: KATSUMI YANAGISHIMA / EDITOR: TOSHIO TANIGUCHI / PRINT SOURCE: THE JAPAN FOUNDATION / RIGHTS: SHOCHIKU
Small town baseball player Masaki is troubled by a member of the yakuza (Japanese mafia) and vows revenge. Teaming up with his friend Kazuo, the simple-minded duo travel to Okinawa to buy guns and avenge their injustice. While in Okinawa they meet the psychotic ex-yakuza Uehara (Takeshi Kitano) who takes them under his wing and into a world of violence and brutality. Boiling Point seethes with an underlying criticism of Japanese society, mocking the country’s cultural expressions of self-sacrifice and politeness with a harsh new egocentricity.
Shigeru is a mute garbage collector determined to learn the art of surfing after finding a broken surf board on his garbage route. Accompanied one step behind him is his faithful (and also mute) girlfriend; Shigeru negotiates the obstacles of learning to surf and the surf culture clique. The film quietly captures moments in a life that are hard to articulate, the exquisite simple pleasures of a beachside lifestyle, contemplating the ocean and the delicate negotiations of love. A Scene at the Sea marked the beginning of Takeshi Kitano’s collaboration with composer Joe Hisaishi who previously scored the films of Hayao Miyazaki. Hisaishi’s restraint subtly compliments Kitano’s signature use of silence and pause.
Sonatine opens with yakuza leader Murakawa (Takeshi Kitano) unsettled by news that his boss is so happy with his success he wants to send him away from the city to help with a territory dispute in Okinawa. What on the surface seems like a routine request leads to Murakawa and his trusted men being forced to hide at a remote beach location. The hardened yakuza, at first at odds with the brilliant sunshine and sparkling blues of the Okinawa coast, gradually soften into a beach lifestyle, killing time till they work out the extent of their predicament. Sonatine shifts gear from the barbarous world of urban crime to a beach idyll in which, through games they invent, Murakawa and his men reveal the close bonds that connect them. With the character of Murakawa, Sonatine unfolds as a meditation on the nature of a violent lifestyle and the consequences of the ever-present threat of death.
Minnâ-yatteruka (Getting Any?) 1995 Ages 15+
8.00pm Fri 5 Feb 2010 / Cinema A
35MM, COLOUR, DOLBY, 108 MINUTES, JAPAN, JAPANESE (ENGLISH SUBTITLES) / DIRECTOR/SCRIPT: TAKESHI KITANO / CINEMATOGRAPHER: KATSUMI YANAGISHIMA / EDITORS: TAKESHI KITANO, YOSHINORI OOTA / PRINT SOURCE/RIGHTS: CELLULOID DREAMS
Getting Any? is a sex comedy which draws from Takeshi Kitano’s early career as stand-up comedian and his irreverent comedic television work. The film follows Asao, an unsophisticated 35 year old who has become convinced the only way to be desirable to women is behind the wheel of a sports car. The objects of his desire (both women and cars) are well out of his reach so Asao embarks on an outrageous and elaborate quest to woo women, including selling his grandfather’s kidney and liver to raise some cash. Getting Any? is constructed as a send up of the director’s cinematic persona, in which Kitano himself parodies his own jokes. Full of toilet humour, physical comedy and a lampooning of well-loved icons of Japanese cinema such as Zatoichi the blind swordsman and Akira Kurosawa, Getting Any? is Kitano in prankster, provocateur mode.
Masaru and Shinji deal with the consequences of being kicked out of high school where they had bullied themselves to the top of the pecking order. Outside of the comfort of the classroom, the pair grapple with an aimless existence and drift into the violent pursuits of boxer (Shinji) and yakuza (Masaru). Kids Return hailed Takeshi Kitano’s return to directing after his near-death experience of a serious drink-driving motorbike accident which left him partially paralysed. The film was made amidst speculation Kitano may never work again and went on screen at the 1996 Cannes International Film Festival.
Nishi (Takeshi Kitano) is a broken man haunted by the presence of death in both his work and personal life. A hardened policeman, he replays the trauma of a gunfight which his officers were killed and his colleague Horibe confined to a wheelchair. Off duty he cares for his dying wife. The deceptively simple sequences between Nishi and his wife are suffused with a heart-rending melancholy as both try to negotiate their relationship amid the unspoken spectre of her approaching death. Fireworks is a delicate balance of tenderness and Kitano’s characteristic nihilism that brought the actor-director to international prominence. Fireworks received the Golden Lion at the 1997 Venice Film Festival.
Kikujiro no natsu (Kikujiro) 1999 M
8.00pm Fri 22 Jan 2010 / Cinema A
35MM, COLOUR, DOLBY, 121 MINUTES, JAPAN, JAPANESE (ENGLISH SUBTITLES) / DIRECTOR/SCRIPT: TAKESHI KITANO / CINEMATOGRAPHER: KATSUMI YANAGISHIMA / EDITORS: TAKESHI KITANO, YOSHINORI OOTA / PRINT SOURCE: CELLULOID DREAMS / RIGHTS: AMALGAMATED FILMS, SONY FILMS
As much an odd couple film as an eccentric road movie, Kikujiro follows Takeshi Kitano as the gruff Kikujiro who begrudgingly escorts nine year old Masao across the countryside to visit his mother. After Kikujiro loses their travel money on the horse races, the two must rely on the sympathy of strangers to get to their destination, encountering a series of obstacles and adventures which play out as classic Kitano comedic skits, peppered with oddball characters and Kitano making fun of himself. Made in reaction to the criticism he received for the level of violence in his previous films, Kitano explores the subtle and deepening relationship between knavish adult Kikujiro and sober, innocent Masao.
Brother 2000 Ages 15+
8.00pm Fri 26 Feb 2010 / Cinema A
35MM, COLOUR, DOLBY DIGITAL, 114 MINUTES, USA/UK/JAPAN, ENGLISH/JAPANESE/ITALIAN/SPANISH (ENGLISH SUBTITLES) / DIRECTOR/SCRIPT: TAKESHI KITANO / CINEMATOGRAPHER: KATSUMI YANAGISHIMA / EDITORS: TAKESHI KITANO, YOSHINORI OOTA / PRINT SOURCE/RIGHTS: HOPSCOTCH FILMS
After a yakuza territory battle, Aniki (Takeshi Kitano) is banished from Japan and travels to the United States to live with his younger brother. Finding his brother has adopted an American gangster lifestyle and is battling over territory and drug deals, Aniki steps in to solve the dispute with smooth confidence taking his brother’s small time gang to the next level. Aniki plays a game of double or nothing throughout the film as he gambles with US gangster Denny over dice, with rival gangs for territory and ultimately with his life. Brother could similarly be read as Kitano’s game of double or nothing experiment to break into Hollywood cinema as his first film shot outside of Japan in English. Kitano’s signature directorial idiosyncrasies are retained his unsettling violence and minimalist acting styles. Kitano gambles on the outcome of the American audience to either embrace his off beat style as it is…or not at all.
Dolls is a distinct deviation from Takeshi Kitano’s aesthetic and thematic filmmaking style. While many of Kitano’s signature filmic techniques are present (there are still yakuza characters and an emphasis on wordless character interaction) the director turns his attention to a love story and his camera on the Japanese landscape. Kitano meditates on the bonds of love and its various manifestations through three storylines woven together. Filling his frame with vividly saturated colour, the epic landscape becomes a stage in which the two lead lovers wander, connected by a red rope, through Japan’s changing seasons.
Zatôichi (Zatoichi) 2003 MA15+
8.00pm 12 Mar 2010 / Cinema A
35MM, COLOUR, DOLBY DIGITAL, 116 MINUTES, JAPAN, JAPANESE (ENGLISH SUBTITLES) / DIRECTOR/SCRIPT: TAKESHI KITANO / BASED ON THE STORY BY KAN SHIMOSAWA / CINEMATOGRAPHER: KATSUMI YANAGISHIMA / EDITORS: TAKESHI KITANO, YOSHINORI OOTA / PRINT SOURCE/RIGHTS: BUENA VISTA INTERNATIONAL
Zatōichi is Takeshi Kitano’s cinematic interpretation of Japan’s most well-loved heroic characters — Zatōichi the blind swordsman — whose story has been dramatised for decades in television and cinema. Set in the Edo period within a poor, rural village, Zatōichi is an itinerant blind masseur who unveils his exquisite swordsmanship and cunning to defend the inhabitants of the village from a ruthless and unjust yakuza mob. Kitano’s hyper-real violence, blond swordsman and rearranging of classic Zatōichi tropes (the usually evil opponent was made into a sympathetic character) was considered a bold reworking of the narrative. It is a loving tribute from Kitano who daringly blends samurai action with rhythmic musical interludes that combine to create exhilarating crescendo in the film’s surprising coda.
Takeshis' 2005 MA15+
8.00pm 19 Mar 2010 / Cinema A
35MM, COLOUR, DOLBY DIGITAL, 108 MINUTES, JAPAN, JAPANESE (ENGLISH SUBTITLES) / DIRECTOR/SCRIPT: TAKESHI KITANO / CINEMATOGRAPHER: KATSUMI YANAGISHIMA / EDITORS: TAKESHI KITANO, YOSHINORI OOTA / PRINT SOURCE: CELLULOID DREAMS / RIGHTS: MADMAN ENTERTAINMENT
Takeshis’ is a delirious mix of absurd humour and sharp social observation. The film is once a parody of Takeshi Kitano’s own film work and an autobiographical account of Kitano’s chief protagonist of the flawed hero, with multiple Kitano characters portraying different aspects of the director’s private and public personas. Takeshis’ is scattered with Kitano acting regulars, placed like cameos throughout the narrative, playing caricatures of their previous roles. Kayoko Kishimoto (the wife from Fireworks) shines as the hilarious unnamed ‘killjoy’ character, constantly the fly in the ointment, appearing in scenes to take away Kitano’s gun in the middle of a gunfight, point out his hiding spot to the bad guys and making Kitano’s convenience store attendant count out 9990 yen in change. A playfully surrealist melting pot of Kitano’s cinematic tropes, Takeshis’ combines bloodied gangsters, tap dancing caterpillars and wistfully shot seascapes.
Kantoku: Banzai! (Glory to the Filmmaker!) 2007 Ages 15+
8.00pm 26 Mar 2010 / Cinema A
35MM, COLOUR AND BLACK AND WHITE, DOLBY DIGITAL, 108 MINUTES, JAPAN, JAPANESE (ENGLISH SUBTITLES) / DIRECTOR/SCRIPT: TAKESHI KITANO / CINEMATOGRAPHER: KATSUMI YANAGISHIMA / EDITORS: TAKESHI KITANO, YOSHINORI OOTA / PRINT SOURCE/RIGHTS: CELLULOID DREAMS
Glory to the Filmmaker! is the second instalment in what Takeshi Kitano has dubbed as his ‘artistic suicide’ trilogy: a self-reflexive examination of the Kitano's cinematic personas beginning with Takeshis’ 2005 and ending with Achilles and the Tortoise 2008. Kitano stars as a commercial film director attempting to create a successful blockbuster. He fails repeatedly as he jumps from genre to genre – J-Horror and science fiction through to the gangster films and romantic comedies. Premiering at the 2007 Venice Film Festival, the film prompted the festival to create a new award, the 'Glory to the Filmmaker' Award initially awarded in 2008 to Kitano for cinematic innovation and in 2009 to Sylvester Stallone.
Takeshi Kitano portrays a struggling middle age painter during the third act of this three act film following the artist from boyhood to adulthood. At the heart of his artistic mission is the strong figure of Sachiko (Kumiko Aso) who becomes his wife and support through good and bad times. In the pursuit of making art he sacrifices his family, becoming increasingly a man obsessed with the immediate relevance in his artwork while this compulsion detaches him from the world. As with other films in Kitano’s semi-autobiographical trilogy, Achilles and the Tortoise offers glimpses into Kitano’s working process, his creative inspiration, his self-aware egocentricity and introspection.
