a film by Takeshi Kitano

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Takeshis’ a film by Takeshi Kitano2005 – Japan - 110’ – 35mm – Color – 1:85 – Dolby SRphotos downloadable at www.filmpressplus.com/surprise

In Competition Surprise Film Venice 2005Masters Toronto 2005

CAST

BEAT TAKESHI KITANO as Beat Takeshi, the movie star, & Mr. Kitano, Beat’s Blond Lookalike.KOTOMI KYONO as Beat Takeshi’s Girlfriend & Kitano’s Neighbor.KAYOKO KISHIMOTO as the Woman at the Mahjong Parlor & the Producer at the Audition & the Bank Customer & others.REN OHSUGI as Beat Takeshi’s Manager & the Taxi Driver.SUSUMU TERAJIMA as Beat Takeshi’s Long-time Acquaintance & Kitano’s Yakuza Neighbor.TETSU WATANABE as the TV Wardrobe Master & the Noodle Cook & the Auditioning Middle-aged Actor.AKIHIRO MIWA as MIWA, the Singer.

CREW

written, edited & directed byTAKESHI KITANOcostumes YOHJI YAMAMOTO cinematography KATSUMI YANAGIJIMAlighting design HITOSHI TAKAYAproduction design NORIHIRO ISODAsound design SENJI HORIUCHI editor YOSHINORI OTA 1st assistant director TAKASHI MATSUKAWA script supervisor KUMIKO YOSHIDAproduction manager KENSEI MORI casting TAKEFUMI YOSHIKAWA music producer MISAKO NODA music NAGI sound effects KENJI SHIBASAKIline producer SHINJI KOMIYAproducers MASAYUKI MORI and TAKIO YOSHIDA

SYNOPSISBeat Takeshi lives the busy, and sometimes surreal, life of a show biz celebrity. But his blond lookalike named Kitano, a shy convenience store cashier, is still an unknown actor waiting for his big break. After crossing paths with Beat and a series of frustrating auditions, Kitano seems to mysteriously fall into a fantasy state highlighted by aspects of Beat’s real life and violent on-screen persona...

BIOGRAPHYWriter-director-actor Takeshi Kitano exchanged his trademark yakuza guns for a cane sword of lightning-fast speed in 2003’s ZATOICHI. Directing a period piece for the first time, Kitano revived the blind cult action anti-hero Zatoichi for a new generation worldwide. ZATOICHI won numerous international awards, including Venice’s Silver Lion for Best Director and Toronto’s People’s Choice Award.

Since 1997’s HANA-BI, Kitano has been recognized as a leading cinema figure. Among its numerous awards, HANA-BI won Venice’s Golden Lion and was named Best Non-European Film by the European Film Academy. HANA-BI was cited on numerous “Best Films of the Year” lists, often in the premiere position.

In 2000, Kitano made BROTHER, his first film shot outside of his native Japan. Like BROTHER, Kitano-directed films such as his debut VIOLENT COP (1989), BOILING POINT (1990) and SONATINE (1993) centered around yakuza gangster characters. The filmmaker contrasted the violence and action of those films with comedy or tenderness in films like A SCENE AT THE SEA (1991), GETTING ANY? (1995), KIDS RETURN (1996), KIKUJIRO (1999) and DOLLS (2002). As an actor, Kitano has also appeared in films which he has not directed himself. Most recently, Kitano gave an award-winning leading performance in Yoichi Sai’s 2004 epic BLOOD AND BONES (CHI TO HONE) and he appeared in Takashi Miike’s 2004 film IZO. Kitano’s acting first won

international attention for his role in Nagisa Oshima’s MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE (1983). He collaborated again with Oshima in 1999’s samurai epic TABOO (GOHATTO). Other credits include Japanese box-office smash hits Kenta and Kinji Fukasaku’s BATTLE ROYALE II and Kinji Fukasaku’s BATTLE ROYALE. Kitano’s credits in films directed by non-Japanese filmmakers include include Robert Longo’s JOHNNY MNEMONIC (US, 1995) and Jean-Pierre Limosin’s TOKYO EYES (France, 1998).

Kitano was born in Tokyo in 1947 and entered show business in 1972 as “Beat” Takeshi, the stage name he continues to use today as a performer. As part of the comic duo Two Beats, Kitano was one of the leading figures in the manzai (stand-up comedy) boom in the late 1970s. With his distinctive art of speech and his idiosyncratic perspective, Kitano became one of the most popular entertainers in the country during the 1980s.

After an incredibly prolific and diverse 30-year career, Kitano continues to be one of the foremost personalities in Japan. He participates in weekly TV programs (such as the exported game show «Takeshi’s Castle» / «Most Extreme Elimination Challenge», originally aired in Japan from 1986-89), as well as several TV films and specials per year. He has written a number of novels and collections of short stories, essays and poetry. Also an accomplished cartoonist and painter, Kitano’s artwork can be seen in HANA-BI and KIKUJIRO.

FILMMAKER

2005 TAKESHIS’ director, writer, editor2003 ZATOICHI director, writer, editor2002 DOLLS director, writer, editor2000 BROTHER director, writer, editor1999 KIKUJIRO director, writer, editor1997 HANA-BI (FIREWORKS) director, writer, editor1996 KIDS RETURN director, writer, editor

1995 GETTING ANY? director, writer, editor1993 SONATINE director, writer, editor1991 A SCENE AT THE SEA director, writer, editor1990 BOILING POINT director, writer, editor1989 VIOLENT COP director

ACTOR

2004 BLOOD AND BONES (Yoichi Sai)2003 ZATOICHI2003 BATTLE ROYALE II (Kenta & Kinji Fukasaku)2001 BATTLE ROYALE (Kinji Fukasaku)2000 BROTHER1999 TABOO (Nagisa Oshima)1999 KIKUJIRO1998 TOKYO EYES (Jean-Pierre Limosin)

1997 HANA-BI (FIREWORKS)1995 FIVE OF THEM (GONIN) (Takashi Ishii)1995 GETTING ANY?1994 JOHNNY MNEMONIC (Robert Longo)1993 SONATINE1993 MANY HAPPY RETURNS (Toshihiro Tenma)1990 BOILING POINT1989 VIOLENT COP1983 MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE (Nagisa Oshima)

TAKESHI KITANO ON TAKESHIS’

For years, I was working over an idea of a film I called Fractal. It’s a story about an ordinary guy and events happening around him but at a certain point it takes on a weird twist. He enters into an imaginary world in his consciousness, where he sees himself entering into yet another imaginary world, where he, again, sees him entering into yet another world and so on and on. The story unfolds as it interweaves between his real time actions and imaginary worlds in his consciousness, multi-layered like a Baumkuchen cake. I had been keeping this idea for more than a decade since around the time when I made my fourth directorial film Sonatine. Since then I have been nudging my producers to green-light the project. But every time I asked, they kept putting it off saying, “maybe next time,” until I changed the character, setting and plot and called it TAKESHIS’. Their excuse for putting off the project for all these years was that it would be creatively advantageous for me to make different kinds of movie as much as possible and try out various ideas in them before I took on such an experimental project as Fractal. Which sounds plausible enough but I suspect they were just afraid of making a so-called “difficult” film with a complicated plot, which most likely just repels the audience. They thought it was a perfect recipe for commercial disaster! I was convinced that was the case this time around. Because when I proposed them last year, “Guys, about that Fractal movie, I decided to play the main character myself rather than cast another actor. And also, I simplified the storyline a great deal. What do you think?” they immediately replied, “That sounds great. Let’s do it!” The biggest change I made for TAKESHIS’ from Fractal is the setting of the main character. I

opted not only to play the main character myself but also to set the protagonist as Beat Takeshi / Takeshi Kitano. I deemed that was the most effective way to depict characters realistically given the unreal premise of the story. Of course, that does not mean that Beat Takeshi persona portrayed in the film is the equivalent of my real self. The persona in the film is the amalgam of the public image of Beat Takeshi that I assume the majority of the Japanese watching me on TV and films would imagine me to be and the stereotypical “pompous big star” image that I assume to be shared amongst the Japanese. I reconstructed the story with my utmost intricacy before I set out for shooting but as it turned out my notorious habit of wanting spontaneity reared its nasty head again and again while shooting and editing. When I finally completed the project, what I felt was not so much a sense of having accomplished what I had always wanted for ages. But rather, every time I review the completed film, I am surprised by the strange universe I created on big screen and how it turned out to be way weirder than I had expected, despite of the fact that I made the film myself! For those who are about to watch, please stop all your cerebral activities and ‘feel’ and ‘experience’ the movie. And after you have done that, I would appreciate it if you could watch it again before you start analyzing.

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