I just realized that not everybody is familiar with the Japanese movie icon, Takeshi Kitano, which is big a mistake. I myself am a big fan of his movies, about which I have a hard time coming up with one single word they have in common. His movies are just too different, although they are usually very dramatic in some way. I think he would be an obvious theme for my second 3 of a kind posts. Not only does this guy make movies. You might have heard about Takeshi’s Castle, and he is generally very exposed in the japanese media. While I was in Japan in 2004 i was able to watch him several times in tv shows. (Wearing a dressing gown for some reason).
By looking at the pictures below you might notice that there is no Battle Royale, which you might think is utterly insane. But off course you have already watched that movie, and if not, then try by all your powers to wriggle your toes so the doctors will try harder to wake you up from your coma. By the way, these movies are only movies that mr. Takeshi himself directed, which he didn’t do with Battle Royale, even though I suspect a lot of influence from him. I am mainly thinking about the scene in the end where Takeshi is shot several times, and everybody thinks he is done. But then his phone calls and he just have to get up at get it like nothing have happened.
Zatoichi is a remake of an old series of movies featuring Zatoichi, the blind swordsman. Off course he took the role as Zatoichi himself, which he does very well. A thing about Beat Takeshi, which he is also called, is that he very often acts in his own movies. It is about a blind guy who enters a village, and meets badguys and….do nothing!! But only for a while. Then he ofcourse kicks ass, which he is fairly good at even thouh he is blind. Unfortunately I haven’t seen any other Zatoichi movies, but I guess this one is the weirdest. There are episodes where normal everyday situations, generate rhythmic sounds, which is totally out of context. In the “hmm, that was kind of weird” kind of way. For instance some farmers use their tools in the field in a way that it generates a rhythmic beat, which is never mentioned or referred to again. Another cool thing is Kitanos normal dislike of traditional swordfights. They are too often trying to hit the sword of the opponent more that the opponent himself. In this movie he has tried to do it differently, and the swordfights turn out cool and bloody. Although there could be more.
Kikujiro no Natsu is a whole other kind of movie. Takeshi plays a lowlife hustler kind of guy (Kikujiro), who is taking a young boy to see his grandma. I don’t really remember if they are related or not, but I guess that is not really important. The movie is not very action packed, nor is there bloody fighting scenes. But it is still a good movie, filled with very funny an entertaining elements. Kikujiro is such a “to the bone” loser, so he is surely not the ideal traveling companion for a young boy. And in the early beginning of the movie it Kikujiro has success in loosing all the boys money on the cycle racing tracks, and it sorts of takes of from there. The movie itself is kind of low pace, with steady humorous features.
The last Movie in this Post is Dolls. Surely the strangest movie I have seen from Takeshi Kitano. It is actually three small intervened stories, and yes, that idea have been seen before. This movie is very tragically and emotionally though, and is mainly about love and insanity. And this movie shows just how close these to mind states are to each other. I wont write about the actual content of the movie because nobody reads this far anyways. And I wouldn’t recommend this one, unless you are really into Takeshis movies. But it the movies really generates a mood, and the play with colors are nice, as you might see from the cover. And by the way, the strangest thing about this movie is that he does’nt appear in it himself…