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 something different, or was at the time, for Kitano. He had generally been creating violent gangster films about the Yakuza. He first moved away from that genre with a film about surfers. When asked why his new movie had no yakuza in it, he said “Well you know yakuza have to chop off their fingers on their left hand when they disobey orders. And surfers have to paddle their boards out to sea. If a yakuza tried to surf, he would only paddle in circles.” This sense of humor defines all of his work, including the sentimental, touching tale told in Kikujiro.

Kitano’s career has had a lot of twists and turns. He began as an emcee of a nightclub. When the comedian there got sick, he took over as comic for the night, and he was a huge star on the comedy scene for a number of years.

He would eventually become a popular TV show host, and even get a job designing his own video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System, called Takeshi’s Challenge. The game followed a salaryman who gambles, drinks and fights the yakuza. It featured bizarre challenges such as holding a button for an hour straight and a last boss who takes well over one hundred thousand individual strikes to kill. It wasn’t so much a game as it was a torture device, starting with a warning reading “This game was made by a man who hates video games!”

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.

Later, Kitano is forced to beg for food for himself and the boy. He gets two sandwiches, hides one, and tells the boy “You eat, I don’t need food right now”. He then hides around the corner to eat his own sandwich. It’s a funny scene, showing that he may be a lovable loser, but he really wants the child’s respect and isn’t afraid of lying to get it!

The movie is incredibly touching, with one of the best scenes being a dream sequence wherein the child recalls all the fun he’s had with Kikujiro and their friends. It’s about family, and how each group of people will define that word for themselves, outside of societal norms.

Sonatine is the Kitano film that is most well known in the US, but Kikujiro is without a doubt one of his very best.

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