Customer Reviews

Beat Takeshi Vs. Takeshi Kitano

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The first Kitano Takeshi film I watched was Kikujiro in one of my Japanese classes. Entranced by the delightful film, I decided that I wanted to watch other works by this comedic director. Hoping for a similar sense of enjoyment that I experienced while watching Kikujiro, I purchased A Scene at the Sea and Fireworks. Let me say that what I experienced watching these two films were quite different than the one I had watching Kikujiro. A Scene a the Sea is probably one of the most minimalist films that I have ever seen in both dialogue and action, but watching it was like being in a quiet meditation for one-hundred minutes and small parts of the film, such as when Takako folds Shigeru's clothing or when the "Orange Woman" repeatedly asks a number of people to peel her fruit, are quite heartwarming. The ending of the film left me a bit melancholy, but it was tinged more with nostalgia than sadness. I then watched Fireworks which is a film that must be experienced more than once because the duel stories of Nishi and Horibe overlap more than one thinks upon the initial viewing.

Since then I watched several other Kitano Takeshi films and have enjoyed each in a different way be it the aesthetic beauty of Dolls or the ribaldry of Getting Any?. However, besides reading some short articles by Beat Takeshi that were, of course, more for fun than scholarly intent, I had yet to read a scholarly tome concerning Kitano's body of work. Therefore I was very pleased to read the announcement that Abe Casio's study Beat Takeshi vs. Kitano was going to be released in English. This was back in 2002 and so I waited and waited for the book to be released and after quite some time had passed, I forgot about it. However, one day, while randomly surfing the Internet, I came across the book and saw that it had been released, so I quickly ordered it and read it. It is quite good and I believe that both Kitano enthusiasts and Japanese film fans and scholars should read it.

Abe's book is separated into two halves. Being that the book was originally released in 1994 and Kitano had only directed four films, Violent Cop, Boiling Point, A Scene at the Sea, and Sonatine, so the book at first glance seems to be less than comprehensive work, however, with ample information concerning Kitano's work as an actor, Many Happy Returns, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, and his television work, Abe fills this supposed void. At any rate, the second half of the English edition of the book contains a number of articles concerning Kitano's later films, Getting Any?, Fireworks, Kikujiro, Brother, and Dolls.

As made obvious by the title, Abe contrasts the dueling personalities of the larger-than-life comedian Beat Takeshi and the more subdued, almost gloomy persona embodied within the filmmaker Kitano Takeshi. Much of the earlier parts of the book mainly consist of Abe's diatribes against Japanese television which he views as nothing more than a vapid waste of time consisting of little more than talk shows, travel shows, and cartoons. However, he also writes that television is dangerous because of its collective desire to homogenize a nation. It is within this miasma of pop-culture vacuity that the former manzai comedian Beat Takeshi raised to stardom, but he, along with his comic troop the Takeshi Gundan, or Takeshi Army, was able to prevent himself from being homogenized by his refusal to play along by television's rules. However, because it is a tremendous force, Takeshi was not able defeat television, so when opportunity to direct Violent Cop knocked, Takeshi jumped upon it. Without worrying if his films would be hits, it was nearly impossible for any Japanese film to do well during the late 1980s and early 1990s, Kitano, as a director, was able to put his thoughts on screen, especially his relentless fascination with suicide.

Quite wordy and academic in nature, the names Walter Benjamin, Kierkegaard, Orikuchi Shinobu, etc. pop up quite often, one sometimes has to wage battle with Abe's words to find his main ideas, but the book is a valuable and welcome edition to ones Japanese film bookshelf.

Casio Abe, Beat Takeshi vs. Takeshi Kitano (Kaya, 2003)

Either Japanese film criticism is an entirely different beast than its western counterpart, or Casio Abe is the downright oddest film critic I have ever come across. Not that this is a bad thing; his impressionist takes on the films of Takeshi Kitano are quite fun to read, and this book, I'll say from the outset, is a must for Kitano fans-- but as you'll learn pretty quickly (as in, in the translator's foreword), Casio Abe does not watch films like the average film critic. Indeed, he watches films like the average film fan, and because of that, he tends to be kind of obsessive, even when he's getting the details wrong (a habit for which, it should be noted, Abe never, ever apologizes-- he's one of those "the facts get in the way of the truth" types, I guess).

After a long introductory essay in which Abe traces Kitano's television career and explains his thesis that Beat Takeshi (Kitano's television persona, and the name he acts under in most of his films) is set against Takeshi Kitano (the director) in just about every way possible, he dives right in, devoting one essay/chapter to each of Kitano's films. The original book covered only the first four, having been released in 1994, and these essays are much longer and more in-depth than the ones that were added for the book's 2003 release (the chapters on Kikujiro and Brother, for example, are less than six pages, while Abe's examination of Sonatine runs thirty). Despite Abe's rather lackadaisical method of film viewing, there can be no denying from word one that this guy takes Kitano seriously as an auteur; like Tom Mes' wonderful books on Takashi Miike and Shinya Tsukamoto, that such a book exists at all with Takeshi Kitano as its subject is a very welcome thing. And as far as that goes, Abe's topics are much the same as those one finds in any other book of film criticism-- themes that move from film to film, notes on small character quirks (for example, Abe's observation that for most of A Scene at the Sea, the two main characters never face one another-- a detail I'd completely missed), that sort of thing. But there's an exuberance to Abe's writing that one doesn't find in most film criticism, just as there is with Mes. Perhaps it comes from taking a director who isn't considered all that hot in his home country and treating him like he is (in some sort of transgressive sense)? I don't know, but in the intervening fourteen years, Abe has certainly been proved right, as Sonatine (and Kitano's later films Hana-bi and Kikujiro) has started finding its way onto critics' thousand-best-films-ever-made lists. There can no longer be any doubt that Kitano is, in fact, a serious, and very good, filmmaker. Abe just saw it before everyone else did. And now that Kitano is finally gaining some appreciation in the west, you can get your hands on this little book and find out what all the fuss is about. (Or you could just go rent Kikujiro.) *** ½

This book is full of interesting reviews of most of Takeshi's films, everything from Violent Cop to Dolls. It presents engrossing ideas of the duality of self and the masks Takeshi wears for his public. While being perhaps a little too worshipful of the director/superstar, it is none the less thought provoking and thorough. Worth every penny.

I'm a big fan of Takeshi Kitano and I picked this book up without even thinking about it when I saw it. It is a very nice paperback; small but well bound with a great cover photo.

The book is very well written but that may be the book's one flaw as it is very wordy and reads like a thesis. While that's not necessarily a bad thing, this simply isn't a book to pick up for a casual read as it is a bit demanding intellectually speaking. It does present some very interesting theories and insight into Kitano's work, both in film and in television. I really enjoyed reading the author's dissection on the nature of the Beat Takeshi/Takeshi Kitano relationship in his films and his take on television culture in general, which he crucifies more than once throughout the book.

Also, like with other books of this nature, I can't help but feel like the author sees way too much into Kitano's work, probably more than Kitano himself. Kitano doesn't strike me as the type to meticulously plan every tiny detail in his films as the author insinuates in this book. Kitano seems to me to be more of an instinctual director who works more off of intuition. While I do appreciate that this is an analytical essay on the subject, some of the theories and points are just way out there, probably enough to make Kitano himself scratch his head in a perplexed state.

The book covers everything up until "Dolls", which is a shame since Kitano has filmed "Zatoichi" and "Takeshis" in the past few years and I would've loved to read what the author had to say about those films.

If you'd like a nice, concise reading on Mr. Kitano's work (and who wouldn't?), I strongly recommend this.

The seemingly split personality between international film auteur Takeshi Kitano and TV personality/movie actor "Beat" Takeshi has intrigued me since I saw his wondrous 2000 road movie, "Kikujiro", right after one of the ridiculously dubbed episodes of his game show, "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge" (a.k.a. "Takeshi's Castle"). What appears common between the two selves is the unpredictability of his technique and his quirky sense of humor. Film critic Casio Abe has done a thorough job in examining both halves of the man in question with a series of meticulously written essays that illuminate Kitano's artistic motivations and the native culture that embraces him wholeheartedly. "Kikujiro", as it turns out, is something of an anachronism in Kitano's filmography since he is known by Westerners for developing his own film noir aesthetic with its stylized violence and narrative idiosyncrasies. You can tell from the book why his approach is revered by directors such as Martin Scorcese, John Woo and especially Quentin Tarantino, who seems to follow similar themes in his films.

As a true Japanese film connoisseur, Abe tends to get didactic in his meticulous descriptions of scenes and character motivations within Kitano's movies. For example, his comments about Kitano transcending Beat Takeshi move toward a philosophical discussion that borders on pretentious. The author's praise sometimes gets a little too effusive, but it's a forgivable indulgence since only the most serious fan of Kitano's work would read this book. Regardless, it's fortunate that this work has been translated into English since Kitano's worldwide audience has been building steadily for the past decade. Abe includes several excerpts from Kitano interviews and paints as complete a portrait of the filmmaker as possible. Originally published in 1994, the graphically pleasing softbound book has been augmented with a series of more recent magazine articles that focus on his most recent work. This is an excellent overview of Kitano's work for those who have been lucky enough to expose themselves to his artistry.