takeshi kitano

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BROKEN RAGE: Get A First Look At The New Takeshi Kitano Crime Flick Coming In 2025

A new poster is out touting Takeshi Kitano’s new subversive crime comedy, Broken Rage. Kitano directs a cast that also lists fellow Kubi co-stars Tadanobu Asano and Shidō Nakamura, and Nao Omori, along with career cohort Hakuryu for the Amazon MGM Studios-produced flick. Kitano’s Broken Rage explores “comedy within a violent film,” to redefine the norms of the yakuza crime genre. According to the film’s description, “the first half follows a hitman, Nezumi (played by Takeshi Kitano), fighting for his survival when he’s caught between the police and yakuza. But in the second half, the gritty crime-action thriller takes an unexpected turn, evolving into a self-parodying comedy that retells the same story with a captivatingly humorous touch.” Broken Rage makes history as the first Japanese film produced for streaming to be officially festival-selected, with an Out Of Competition premiere slated for September 6 at the 81st Venice International Film Festival. […]

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Japan Cuts XVII Review: In Takeshi Kitano’s KUBI, A Feral Feature Of Feudal Follies

6 min. read I’ve only seen a little over a handful of Takeshi Kitano’s films in my lifetime. That includes a palpable mix of roles in a career that’s lasted more than half a century; If you told me that that guy I saw in Johnny Mnemonic when I was thirteen would have an impact on my interest in film over the years, I would’ve looked at you peculiarly. At any rate, the films I have seen have been ample at helping me gauge Kitano’s approach to violence, drama, and black comedy, even when at the service of other directors. His latest directing effort, adding to a career at the helm that has lasted more than thirty years, now comes in the form of Kubi, an adaptation of his own novel published by Kadokawa, and with decades of development dating back as far as 1993. Beginning in 1579, Kitano’s Kubi […]

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New Takeshi Kitano Movie In The Works At Amazon MGM

Japanese auteur Takeshi Kitano announced he’s currently working on a new film for Amazon MGM Studios on Tuesday. That’s pretty much all there is to know about the mystery movie aside from that Kitano himself is directing and starring in it. A few trade sources previously reported that Kitano’s latest, Kubi, a subversive period piece chronicling the taboo and blood-drenched final years of Oda Nobunaga’s reign, would be his final flick. Not so, apparently, so there’s that. I should mention that Kubi is currently making the festival rounds after debuting at Cannes last year, and will soon hit Japan Cuts audiences in New York City in July. More from the language on Kitano’s collab with Amazon MGM: “Takeshi Kitano is an icon, not only in Japan but in the sphere of global film and media entertainment, and we’re thrilled to collaborate with him on the project, soon to launch on […]

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LOST IN THE STARS, THE SEA IS WATCHING And ZATOICHI Lead The Way For Australia’s Imprint Asia Launch In March!

Aussie label Imprint Films is kicking off its Imprint Asia shingle on March 27 with a trio of lauded titles on limited edition Blu-Ray. Pre-orders are now available for each title both seperately, or as a bundle over at the Imprint website, and I’ve included them in the gallery below with full details and specs on Chen Sicheng’s Lost In The Stars, Akira Kurosawa’s The Sea Is Watching, and Takeshi Kitano’s rousing iteration of The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi. We are kicking off with 2023 Chinese blockbuster LOST IN THE STARS, a Hitchcockian crime mystery thriller produced by Chen Sicheng, “one of the giants of contemporary Chinese Cinema” (Variety). The film follows the disappearance of He Fei’s wife, Li Muzi. When she returns, he insists that she is not his wife… THE SEA IS WATCHING (2002) is coming to Blu-ray for the first time worldwide, a Japanese romance based on the […]

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KUBI Gets An Explosive New Trailer For Takeshi Kitano’s Latest Violent Satirical Period Drama

The newest official trailer has arrived for Kubi, actor “Beat” Takeshi Kitano’s final bow in the director’s chair which opens in Japan cinemas on November 23. Kubi is inspired by Kitano’s own novel and takes a satirical look into multi-angular lens exploring the last several years leading up to the deadly Honno-ji incident that presumably took the life of 16th century warlord, Oda Nobunaga. Kitano is joined by Ryo Kase, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Shido Nakamura, Tadanobu Asano and Nao Omori among the cast also featured on the brand new official poster which you can find just beneath the player.

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KUBI: Takeshi Kitano Returns With A Hefty Headcount In The Violent, Explosive Official Trailer

Three decades in the making with years of research and a book in toe comes the long-awaited pièce de résistance that is Kubi (or Neck), from director and star Takeshi Kitano in his final feature. The official trailer is now online as well, with the film now subject to reviews fresh out of Cannes where the film screen for the 76th edition. Set in the 16th century, as rival warlords battled to control Japan. Lord Oda Nobunaga, intent on controlling Japan, is waging war against several clans when one of his vassals, Araki Murashige stages a rebellion and promptly disappears. Nobunaga assembles his other vassals including Mitsuhide and Hideyoshi, and orders them to capture the fugitive Murashige, warning “I’ll choose whoever works hardest as my successor.” With various thoughts, schemes, and traps they carry out, they’re soon brought to a crossroads in a complicated situation. All roads lead to Honno-ji […]

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KUBI: Takeshi Kitano’s Final Film Teases Violent Retribution In The First Trailer

Five years after stepping down from his position at Office Kitano and with a new novel in his sights, celebrated actor and filmmaker Takeshi Kitano is now ripe for the upcoming ceremony with what looks to be his final bow with the new period action epic, Kubi. The film, based on Kitano’s 2019 novel, was announced a few weeks ago with a poster introduced ahead of the film’s premiere at the 76th Cannes Film Festival, with Kitano directing from his own script and Kadokawa handling the film’s international sales, as well as its local Japan release this Fall. Kitano devoted 30 years to what became his lifework, researching and writing both an original novel and screenplay depicting his outrageous theory about the ambush at Honno-ji Temple, one of the great unsolved mysteries in samurai history. Focusing equally on ninja and foot soldiers, missing from traditional samurai narratives, and on the […]

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NECK: Takeshi “Beat” Kitano To Finish Directing Career Off With Summer Start On Period Actioner

Barring any other expectations by fans of Takeshi “Beat” Kitano, the next stage for the cult filmmaking legend looks to be his final directorial outing, adapting his own novel, Neck. The new period actioner is based on Kitano’s 2019 Kadokawa publication, reportedly inspired in part by Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 jidaigeki opus, Seven Samurai, and is currently set for a May production start. Here’s Variety‘s Mark Schilling with more: The novel “Kubi” is one of many fictional treatments of the real-life Honno-ji Incident, in which famed warlord Oda Nobunaga was assassinated at a temple in Kyoto in 1582. The characters are mainly real historical figures, including Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the Nobunaga retainer who avenges his dead lord in battle, and Sorori Shinzaemon, a Hideyoshi attendant noted for his wit. In Kitano’s novel, which starts prior to the assassination, Shinzaemon captures Araki Murashige, a Nobunaga general accused of disloyalty. The plot revolves around […]

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News Briefs: More KINGSMAN; Sony Casts METAL GEAR SOLID; Mads’s RIDERS OF JUSTICE For Magnet; Kitano Biopic ASAKUSA KID Gets New Life

If director Matthew Vaughn gets his way, the Kingsman franchise will have at least seven more films as well as a TV series on its slate. The franchise is adapted from a graphic novel about a clandestined organization of affluent, gentleman superspies, with the latest, The King’s Man, set to open in February. “We want to grow the business and the output,” said Marv Group CEO Zygi Kamasa to the Winston Baker UK Finance Summit late last week. “We have a Kingsman TV series in the works and there are two-three other franchises that are being developed alongside the Kingsman world.” (Andreas Wiseman, Deadline) Six years after its announcement, Sony Pictures’s Metal Gear Solid movie has officially landed Star Wars franchise actor and upcoming Dune star Oscar Isaac for the role of Solid Snake. The live-action video game adapatation is based on the hit 1987 IP that first launched at […]

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[UPDATED] OUTRAGE: FINAL CHAPTER: Kitano Pops Off In The New Official Trailer For The Yakuza Crime Epic

Acclaimed auteur “Beat” Kitano Takeshi still has a bone to pick with what’s left of his past and he’s gonna need a lot of help and twice as many bullets. Outrage: Final Chapter is in store for an October 7 release in Japan following the events played out in the first two installments since 2010, ensuing in an opus of blood, bullets, courruption, greed and total retribution! The formerly prominent though now decimated Sanno-kai yakuza crime organization is being absorbed into the Hanabishi-kai under their Grand Yakuza leader, who has virtually unified the entire underground of all of Japan into a massive, single and centralized organization. Among the few survivors of the gang war is Otomo who was a former lieutenant of the Sanno-kai and who had allied himself temporarily with the Hanabishi-kai in order to set the records straight concerning what he felt was his unjust imprisonment while still with […]

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There’s A Bullet Coming For The Cast Of Beat Takeshi’s OUTRAGE: FINAL CHAPTER In The First Official Teaser

Ready to see actor and acclaimed auteur “Beat” Kitano Takeshi dump the live-action anime hairdo? If so, you may be pleased to learn that his award-winning two-part Outrage series of gangster thrillers now has a third in tow with Outrage: Final Chapter. Kitano, no less, sits at the helm as well as reprises in the role of Otomo, a once disavowed Yakuza subordinate who wages vengeance against those who had him imprisoned between the events of the first two films. This one sees our saga extending from Japan to Korea with a cast both new and returning, although what remains to be known in detail is what lies ahead for ensuing finale. That said, with so many dead Yakuza, courrpt officials and manipulative police in its wake, the first official teaser arrived on Monday and it’s safe to say that the likelihood of this one being any less violent than […]

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Rupert Sanders’s GHOST IN THE SHELL Movie Teases Kusanagi, Self-Discovery And Aramaki At Point Blank Range

Alas, the first footage has finally arrived to promote the Paramount/Dreamworks release of the new sci-fi cyberpunk fantasy, Ghost In The Shell which opens in theaters on March 2017. And so with it, if you’ve been tuning in, returns the elephant in the room – the unnerving contention surrounding the casting with respect to its roots as a Japanese anime, and the ensuing topic of whitewashing Asian characters as per the usual practice of Hollywood. Is it okay? Of course not. That said, if director Rupert Sanders can still manage to fuse a story together for its first-time iteration for the big screen, it’ll be a win, even if it doesn’t fly in the faces of those in protest since there’s still a point to be made. Undoubtedly, lead actress Scarlett Johnansson, front and center as Major Motoko Kusanagi, is usually terrific at what she does on screen, and at […]

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Kitano's VIOLENT COP Gets A Blu-Ray US Re-Release This Fall

Filmmaking multi-hyphenate Kitano Takeshi’s career hasn’t been all about putting hard-boiled violence and gangsters on screen. Surely enough though, when he does, it leaves a lasting impression that often feels someone enigmatic in its clear-cut resolve. You can’t really knock it in any case. It’s in your face and right down to a threatening cock-eyed stare with a barrel pointed right at you. And it’s tropes like that which highlight Kitano’s signature career in film, especially with the forthcoming US-bound Blu-Ray re-release of his 1989 directing debut, Violent Cop courtesy of Film Movement. SYNOPSIS: In one of his first dramatic roles, writer/director Takeshi “Beat” Kitano plays Detective Azuma, a hostile cop who’s not afraid of using violent means to catch his culprits. When his sister is kidnapped by a sadistic drug lord, Azuma’s Dirty Harry-style tactics escalate in his quest for vengeance. High quality HD transfers are to be expected […]

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GHOST IN THE SHELL Casts Kitano Takeshi To Star

Say what you will of the live-action version of Ghost In The Shell. It’s happening, and with Snow White And The Huntsman helmer Rupert Sanders in the director’s chair while the film itself continues to be a center of curiosity for fans of the franchise everywhere regarding its casting. Let’s call it for what it is, really, with the proverbial elephant in the room being the lack of diversity in Hollywood and the casting for this particular property has been exemplary of this: Scarlett Johansson, Pilou Asbaek and Michael Pitt – all fine actors in their own right while the line-up is principally caucasian, making Dreamworks’s newest venture into this territory something of a controversial nature for those critical in the discourse as of late. The dialogue has been robust on this issue for many a film for sometime now and there’s no sign of it dissipating, but this week […]

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Kitano Takeshi Makes His Villainous Entry In The New Trailer For MOZU

Director Eiichiro Hasumi‘s newest action crime pic, Mozu is just months away from its November theatrical release following production wrap and an initial teaser earlier this year. This week we ge our latest look at an intense new trailer that speaks volumes of its source material as it amps things up from its television predecessors and the 1986 novel they’re all based on, and fot this, we also meet the incomparable Kitano Takeshi chewing things up a bit as the central villain. I’m pretty sure I’m sold. SYNOPSIS: Set six months after Naotake (Hidetoshi Nishijima) learned the truth behind his wife’s death. Naotake works for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Public Security Bureau, but feels worn out. Ryota (Teruyuki Kagawa) quit the police force due to his distrust of the department and now runs a private detective office.   An occupation and explosion case takes place simultaneously with an embassy attack. The […]

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TV Action Series Adaptation, MOZU, Gets A Stellar New Teaser!

Anyone lucky enough to be a regular viewer of Japanese television may be familiar with Assassination Classroom helmer Hasumi Eiichiro‘s most recent offering in both seasons of last year’s multi-TBS and WOWOW network hard-boiled cop series, Mozu – Mozu no Sakebu Yoru and Mozu – Maboroshi no Tsubasa. The show is based on Osaka Go’s 1986 novel work with a script by Nishi Kosuke and has since spawned into the forthcoming film, Mozu, with all the intensity and thrills imaginable centered on a trio of lawmen dealing with all sorts of espionage, violence, betrayal, vengeance and explosive action! SYNOPSIS via Asianwiki: Set six months after Naotake (Hidetoshi Nishijima) learned the truth behind his wife’s death. Naotake works for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Public Security Bureau, but feels worn out. Ryota (Teruyuki Kagawa) quit the police force due to his distrust of the department and now runs a private detective office.  An occupation […]

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Takeshi Kitano Dares You To Move In The New Green-Band Trailer For BEYOND OUTRAGE

Magnet is releasing actor and filmmaker Takeshi Kitano‘s latest crime drama, Beyond Outrage, later this Winter. And adding to the promotional push highlit by the recent captivating red-band trailer unveiled late last month, we now have a green-band trailer, courtesy of City On Fire, that still delivers the same effect. “Beat” fans know what I mean. The award-winning film also stars Toshiyuki Nishida, Tomokazu Miura, Ryo Kase, Hideo Nakano, Yutaka Matsushige, Fumiyo Kohinata, Katsunori Takahashi, Kenta Kiritani, Hirofumi Arai, Sansei Shiomi, Akira Nakao and Shigeru Koyama. Look out for the digital release on November 28 before its limited release on January 3, 2014. SYNOPSIS: With BEYOND OUTRAGE, action cinema master Takeshi Kitano returns to the hard boiled characters, black comedy and unflinching violence of his yakuza saga, OUTRAGE. This time, a manipulative police crackdown on organized crime has ignited a tricky power struggle in the yakuza underworld.   The Sanno crime […]

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Takeshi Kitano Goes BEYOND OUTRAGE In A New U.S. Red-Band Trailer

Magnet Pictures unveiled the new trailer this week for its forthcoming VoD and limited theatrical release of Japanese filmmaking maestro Takeshi Kitano‘s Beyond Outrage. Originally titled with both words switched, the film is the second installation of Kitano‘s Yakuza thriller since the 2010 film, Outrage, hitting the film festival circuit in late 2012 before opening in Japan a month later. Despite garnering mixed reviews, the fan reaction was largely positive with the film’s producers seeking a trilogy from Kitano, the franchise’s lead star, writer and director who was already the recipient of the Best Director award at the 7th Asian Film Awards by then. Beyond Outrage also stars Toshiyuki Nishida, Tomokazu Miura, Ryo Kase, Hideo Nakano, Yutaka Matsushige, Fumiyo Kohinata, Katsunori Takahashi, Kenta Kiritani, Hirofumi Arai, Sansei Shiomi, Akira Nakao and Shigeru Koyama. The film goes digital on November 28 before hitting the big screen on the week of January […]

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