(the) Road to the Deep East

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If compared with 'Dai Nihonjin', it looked this work from Kitano was not so advertised well because it is produced and distributed by Kitano's office itself, different from Matsumoto's supported by Shochiku, the most powerful movie distributer in Japan.

So, considering the reputation on his previous work, 'Takeshi's', I estimated that the number of the audience must be as small as when I watched 'Kids Return' over 10 years ago. Before Venice Grand-prix, HANA-BI, Takeshi hadn't been popular as a movie director at that time, and there are only 10 people when I watched it in the small theater in Shinjuku.

However, the seats of the theater were almost filled, and later it turned out the number of the audience was almost as same as the one of 'Dai Nihon Jin'. It seems “Takeshi vs. Hitoshi“ angle worked beneficially for both, and brought a lot of people to the theater. And thanks to the success of commercial success of Zato-ichi, Takeshi is becoming the hopeful director both artistically and commercially, people can't miss.

Kantoku Banzai is the movie of a movie director Kitano Takeshi, played by himself. In this movie, Takeshi is a famous director for comedy works. (In real Kitano is famous for violence, of course, though. However, for some reasons, he proclaimed that he won't take comedy movies anymore, and challenges to different genre. In the point of that Takeshi plays the role of himself and express the agony as a movie director, first, this movie reminded me Woody Allen or Godard.

He challenges to Ozu-esque monochrome movie, Korean-movie-like love story, Azumi-like ninja movie, Japanese-horror, and even Armageddon-like Science fiction in the omnibus style. And strangely, the story turns into the love story between a characteristic girl played by Suzuki Anne and a member of right wing person played by Takeshi. And in the end, they confronts the unexpected end. It's nonsensical comedy, with a lot of traditional Japanese comedy skits Takeshi developed in 80s.

The point of this movie – or the hidden main character of this movie must be 'Takeshi figure', ,
literary the figure which appears as a substitute for Takeshi himself. Whenever the possibility of he genre of movie he tries to failures, the figure is sacrificed and killed, or, just like a crush test dummy, when Takeshi is attacked by somebody -both mentally and physically. As for this 'Takeshi figure', a little explanation must be needed.

As far as my Takeshi knowledge is concerned, Kitano Takeshi is a kind of artistic person, who can't continue the same thing for long, and needs some refreshment, or reset to start something new. For example, in 1986, when he was in his golden era as a comedian, he assaulted a paparazzi magazine' office with his fellows, and was arrested and suspended almost for a year. And 6 years later, in 1992, he caused a traffic accident by himself, and for 6 months. Later, in some interviews, he confessed that this accident was a kind of subconscious suicide.

And 'Takeshi's figure' is what is used in those TV programs during the suspension 1986. (Fans of MXC might ave already seen the one in some episodes.) So, this sacrificed Takeshi's figure must be the symbol of his reset, or, in a nutshell suicide desire. After the commercial failure of Takeshi's, it seems Takeshi feels the deadlock of his movie just like Takeshi in 'Kanotoku Banzai'.

But Takeshi, who is now over 60 and has already had a grandson recently, didn't attack his enemies, or kill himself this time. Instead, he made a slapstick movie and killed the dummy Takeshi instead of him.

He has already made this kind of comedy in 'Minna Yatteruka'(1995), before 'Kids Return' (1996) and his traffic accident, but different from 'Minna Yatteruka'(Getting Any) which looks just a slapstick comedy to me, in this 'Kantoku Banzai', Kitano Takeshi shows us his tremendous growth as a film maker in 10 years.

I don't write a detailed spoiler, but just like a magic realism, in the end, the matters which looks nonsensical he scattered in this movie gather in the same point, and it turned out that all the stories are meta-fictional parallel worlds born from the same family tree. Takeshi tried to recreate the concept of 'fractal' in 'Takeshi's', but the hidden theme of this 'Kantoku Banzai' might be quantum mechanics. *I'm not sure it's related to this theme, but in this movie, there was a word written in a board, “Lorenz Transformation of Pennis'... might become a good theme to think of when you have nothing to do.

And his trade mark, 'Kitano-Blue' is still intact even in this comedy movie. In some scenes, especially the ones from ninja movie and yakuza violence movie, I was really impressed by his sophisticated way draw with a simple contrast based on blue.“Why does the chubby Japanese middle-aged yakuza with dark glasses look beautiful in Kitano movie? “ That's the mystery of Kitano movie.


I think this will be a very controversial movie. As the fact Cannes didn't invite Kitano for this movie shows, for some critiques, this must look like a nonsense comedy which can't be compared with other Kitano works.

But I found a hope, or infinite possibility on the matters he scattered between baka baka and baka comedy – especially for the infinite Kitano Blue. In addition, this movie is interesting as a comedy.

Honestly speaking, for his age and activities on TV shows recently, I'd though that Ktano has already lost a sense of humor which makes everybody laugh. However, I may tell later, but as far as I experienced, this slapstick comedy made the audience from children and old people laugh with his persistent and traditional style of comedy.

Now Takeshi killed over 9 Takeshi dummies in this movie instead of himself, but it must be a sign of the new start of his career. This is a movie of 'failure' works, literary, but hence, it whips up my interest on the next Kitano movie.