Beat Takeshi's Funeral

[Mulboyne]

Reuters: Japan's Kitano surprises Venice with wacky new film
Japanese cult director Takeshi Kitano baffled and enthralled Venice on Friday with the premiere of "Takeshis'", a surreal send-up of his eclectic career which weaves together the lives of a TV celebrity and his lookalike. The surprise addition to a list of 19 films vying for the Venice Film Festival's top Golden Lion prize is a bewildering jaunt from smoky mah-jong parlours and noodle bars to showdowns between gun-slinging yakuza gangsters...Kitano says he hoped to use the film to close off the type of cinema that has made the prolific artist a cult name outside Japan, where he remains best known for his TV work. "It is a funeral for the genres that I explored over the past dozen movies. In a sense, it is the last of a series," he said. "In Japanese, the title sounds like 'Takeshi's funeral'." ...more...

Toronto Film Festival Description of "Takeshis'"

[Tiger Stripe]

Jesus H. Vishnu!

You scared the shit out of me for a minute there.

[Naniwan Kid]

No kidding....gotta be careful with those subject lines....

[karekora]

makes you look though, huh?

[vir-jin]

He's pathetic. He kills his living example. He finally became professor.

[Mulboyne]

AFP via Yahoo: Kitano takes on Japan again with violent self-parody
Takeshi Kitano says most people who saw his autobiographical new film at Venice wanted their money back. And when it comes out in his native Japan, the acclaimed actor-director is expecting audiences to like it even less..."I guess there were those who gave huge praise and those who wanted their money back at Venice," he told an audience at the recent Japanese premiere. And what about in Japan? He quipped that if 60 percent of the audience members wanted their money back at Venice, the figure would go up to 80 percent in Japan. "Don't think that you are the only ones who will get fooled," Kitano said. "I would be delighted if you could promote my film by saying 'Let's get fooled together'," Kitano joked...more...