Takeshi Kitano is undoubtedly man of many talents, and seemingly limitless energy. As well as the occupations listed above, he is also a poet, novelist, newspaper columnist, host of a daily talk-show, comedian, and has released several singles. He also manages an amateur baseball team as a hobby. Oh, and he occasionally plays for the baseball team as well. In Japan, his popularity is almost unmatched, but, like most other big stars from Japan, he is almost unknown in the west, although the moderate success of his English language film Brother may change this a little. The story of his success is almost fairytale-like in its rags-to-riches cliche.

Biography

Takeshi Kitano was born in 1947, and was brought up in Senju, a rough part of Tokyo. His early life was contradictory - his was the first family in the neighbourhood to own a television set, yet his home life was far from comfortable. His father was a borderline alcoholic, who did little except beat him. His mother worked long hours, in order to pay for his education at Meiji university.

He didn't complete his engineering course, however, and failed to find work at the local Honda factory, as was his ambition. He developed an addiction to gambling, accumulated the equivalent of £17,000 in debt, ended up sleeping on the streets of Tokyo for a year. He managed to get off the streets by finding work as a janitor and waiter, and eventually as a lift attendant at a seedy strip club. It was here that he found he had a talent for entertaining - he was called upon to replace one of the evening's between-striptease performers, a cross-dressing comedy act. He met another young comedian, Kiyoshi Kaneko, and the two formed a double act, 'The Two Beats'¹. Kitano has compared the comedy of 'The Two Beats' to the early stand-up days of Eddie Murphy, and that with their quickfire, irreverent routines, they were the 'alternative' comedians of their day. They were spotted by a producer for NHK, Japan's biggest television network, and by 1976, they were the top comedians on the network. In the late 70s, Kitano went solo, and diversified further - he was cast in a sentai² TV show, 'Super Superman'. Some of his later television work was somewhat darker, including the role of a notorious serial killer, and one as a cult leader.

The first glimpse the west had of Kitano was in Nagisa Oshima's Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence (1983), playing a sadistic POW guard meting out punishment to David Bowie and Tom Conti. His presence here is quiet different from his later work - he lacks the emotion-free stillness that make him so distinctive today. In 1989, he was cast as the lead role in Violent Cop, to be directed by Kinji Fukasaku, well known in Japan for Yakuza thrillers in the 60s, and later director of Battle Royale. Unfortunately, Fukasaku fell ill, leaving Kitano to take over directing duties and enabling him to revise the script. The plot of the film is standard fare, but the style and direction make it an unusual and arresting film.

Japanese audiences were unsure what to make of Violent Cop, as they were used to laughing at Kitano, and there are few light moments in the film. He snuck into a cinema at one showing, and was dissappointed to see that people laughed when he appeared on screen. 'After that, I decided to stick to dark characters in films,' he said of this incident, 'it took me 10 years of playing serial killers and rapists to be perceived as a serious actor among the Japanese public.'

In 1994, Kitano was almost killed in an accident riding a scooter he had bought that very same day³. It was a year before he returned to television work, sporting an eye patch, and he was left with facial paralysis and a permanent limp. Rather than try and hide this, Kitano incorporated these traits into his work - his distinctive walk and facial tics were the most expressive things about his character in Hana-bi, and his character in Battle Royale limps badly after being stabbed by a pupil.

Selected Filmography

Violent Cop (1989)

Considering this was Kitano's directing debut, Violent Cop is an assured piece of work, with his cool, minimalist style already in place. It follows Azuma, played by Kitano, as he tries to save a corrupt colleague and crack a yakuza drugs ring. The story is cliched, but the mood and style raise the film above the pedestrian subject matter.

Violent Cop has been compared to Dirty Harry, but the difference here is that Azuma is not an easy character to cheer for. When Clint Eastwood's Harry Callaghan violated someone's civil rights, it felt right - it may not be by the book, but it was justified. Azuma's policework, which often results in sudden and bloody violence, makes for much more uncomfortable viewing, and his detachment and lack of emotion heighten the discomfort.

Boiling Point (1990)

Unlike Violent Cop, Kitano was in the directors chair for Boiling Point from the very beginning, and it shows. Its tone is lighter by comparison, yet the film retains a dark edge.

Sonatine (1993)

Kids Return (1996)

Hana-bi (1997)

This film is generally considered Kitano's masterpiece, mixing his now trademark stillness and extreme violence with a touching love story, elements of a road movie, and crime drama. It won him his first major international prize, The Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. The film's title translates as 'fireworks' - or, more literally, 'fire-flowers', and reflects the different paths taken by two ex-detectives. Nishi, played by Kitano, robs a bank in order to pay off debts and take his dying wife on a last holiday. Horibe, now in a wheelchair, takes to painting after his wife leaves him.

Hana-bi, while it is a tale of policemen and yakuza, is far from a simple genre piece. Unlike, say, the kinetic violence of John Woo (director of Face/Off and Mission Impossible 2), we often never see the acts of violence themselves. Similarly, Nishi is no action hero, rather he is an introspective man who reacts violently when pushed too far. Hana-bi is highly recommended to those unfamiliar with Kitano's work - it lacks the quirkiness of Boiling Point, is less unremittingly dark as Violent Cop, and its tone is more measured than Sonatine.

Brother(2000)

While Brother is not considered to be as good a film as Hana-Bi, it is important for another reason - it is the first of Kitano's films to be aimed primarily at a western audience. The film follows the rise and fall of

Battle Royale (2000)

Directed by Kinji Fukasaku, Battle Royale has a simple but very disturbing conceit: in the future, in order to combat rising juvenile delinquency, the 'BR Act' is passed. A school class is chosen at random, taken to a deserted island, and are forced to kill each other until there is only one survivor. Although seemingly rather puerile in plot terms, Battle Royale works. The violent mayhem is balanced by the emotional impact of the situation, as the exclusive cliques, unrequited loves and petty fights of the schoolyard are writ large by the battlefield.

Kitano plays 'Kitano', a bitter and unhappy teacher, quite pleased to be taking revenge on the kids. It's a chilling and hillarious performance, that plays on his iconic status in Japan, and features possibly the most absurd death sequence ever seen in a mainstream film⁴. It's unlikely that many actors could make us laugh after he coldly kills two fifteen-year-olds, yet somehow Kitano manages it.

Arthouse Cinema and Gameshow Slapstick

In the west, Kitano is really only known for his films, and even then, they tend to be restricted to arthouse cinemas. Some of his films have only been distributed in the UK and US due to high-profile backing. Quentin Tarantino, who lists Sonatine as an all-time favourite, helped get Kitano's work into cinemas in the west, and his company Rolling Thunder distributes Kitano's films on video. But it seems that Kitano's slightly less arty, more populist work may be breaking through to a wider audience.

Takeshi's Castle is an absurd game show, in which players must 'storm' a stronghold through a series of bizarre challenges - swinging across pits using ropes, headbutting down doors, running across logs, and so on, in order to defeat the 'lord' of the castle - Takeshi Kitano himself. It's the sort of programme that's a staple of Tarrant on TV and the like, screening clips of odd shows from around the world. The show is already a hit in Germany, and a version voiced by Red Dwarf star Craig Charles has been shown in a on cable TV in the UK, with some success. It may not quite as huge over here as it is in Japan, but it me be that the days of Kitano's relative anonymity in the west will soon pass.