Must Download Internet Movies: Kikujiro
Takeshi Kitano is one of the most fascinating characters on the modern cinematic landscape. He has always been creating interesting movies, but at the beginning of his career, he was in danger of being stuck in a rut of only creating violent crime films. This is perhaps due to the fact that his debut directorial effort was really… Well, a violent crime film, Violent Cop. He sort of stumbled onto that job, taking over the reins as director when the initial director dropped out. Next time you want to download internet movies, give it a viewing.
Kikujiro is really a step outside of the norm for Kitano. It’s sweet, touching and sentimental, where his movies are typically much more cold and hard, defined by their violent content. He first stepped outside of this world with a film about surfers, which led to the question “Why no Yakuza in this one?” His answer was that, since surfers have to paddle their boards out to sea, and yakuza have to remove fingers in penance for sins against their brotherhood, many yakuza have five fingers on one hand and three on the other, so they would only paddle in circles out in the ocean and never get anywhere! That’s Kitano’s sense of humor for you, and it’s definitely on display in Kikujiro.
Kitano really has had an interesting career. Having once been a popular stage comedian, he stumbled into that career, too. He had been the emcee of a popular nightclub when the comedian of the night got sick and Kitano had to take over. The rest is history.
He went on to become a popular TV host, and this got him another job as a video game designer. He created a game called Takeshi’s Challenge for the NES. The game began with a title card reading “WARNING: This game was created by a man who hates video games.” We don’t know if he hates video games, but this game hated the player. It included challenges such as holding a single button for several hours straight, a horizontal scrolling shooting game where you cannot hit the up button, so you can only dodge enemies by moving down, and a last boss who took more than one hundred thousand hits to kill.
Kitano’s strange sense of humor really comes through in everything he does, and Kikujiro is no exception. The film follows an old man, played by Kitano, and a young boy as they journey across the country to find the boy’s mother. Along the way, the old man spends all their money on gambling, thinking that the kid can predict the winning horse after a lucky streak.
He winds up begging for food, and giving the boy half of it before eating his own half out of sight of the child. This way it looks like he’s going without for the child’s sake, and it’s very touching that he would lie to earn the boy’s love and respect, if a little unethical.
The movie really is sweet and touching, particularly a dream sequence later on where the boy reflects upon games he has played with Kikujiro and their friends. The two create their own family with the two of them and the goofy characters they meet on their travels.
The movie Kitano is known for in the US is Sonatine, but just as Chow Yun Fat is a comedy star in Asia, not an action star, Kitano is a man capable of much more than just gangster flicks.
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