Wednesday 25 May 2005

All About The Beat

Takeshi Kitano. You either love him or hate him. You either think, for an example, Brother is a stylish melding of Yakuza and Mafia movies given the odd twist and strange pacing, or it's possibly one of the worst movies ever made. I have a soft spot for it, I think it's missing some of the normal Kitano depth, which it's replaced by lots more talking than you would expect, but on the whole it's an interesting branching out for the director.

His movies do take a while to get used to. The ones I've seen — Violent Cop, Boiling Point, Sonatine, Hana Bi, Brother, Zatoichi — tend to feel very still and calm (slow, if you really want to use that word) right up until the moment insane violence breaks out. Then it goes back to being still and calm again.

Anyway, the guy who runs this site really loves the Takeshi. This, I think, is a good thing. He's got very thorough reviews of the Takeshi movies avalible on DVD and some lovely desktop images. It's quite the labour of love.

Kitano's own site is here.

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