Beat Takeshi KitanoFilmography

Girara No Gyakushu: Samitto Kiki Ippatsu!

Actors: Natsuki Kato, Kazuki Kato, Hirohisa Nakata, Susumu Kurobe

Synopsis: Vintage Japanese monster movies and contemporary politics are both given a poke in the ribs in this satiric comedy from director Minoru Kawasaki. The G8 Summit is being held in Hokkaido, Japan, and the leaders of the World's most powerful and prosperous nations have arrived to discuss Read More

To Each His Own Cinema

Crew: Director

Synopsis: At the time of its production, To Each His Own Cinema represented the latest arrival in a tidal wave of internationally oriented omnibus films, with no official relation between them but all produced within a few years of one another. Few could claim a roster of talent comparable to this one Read More

Glory to the Filmmaker!

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Beat Takeshi Kitano, Toru Emori, Kayoko Kishimoto, Anne Suzuki, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Keiko Matsuzaka

Synopsis: A self-referential comedy that serves as prolific Japanese filmmaker Takeshi "Beat" Kitano's latest attempt at "creative destruction" (that process was set into motion with the release of 2005's Takeshis), Kantoku Banzai! follows an ageing filmmaker (Kitano) who is eager to revive his failing Read More

Arakimentari

Actors: Nobuyoshi Araki, Beat Takeshi Kitano, Björk, Daido Moriyama, Richard Kern

Synopsis: Nobuyoshi Araki is Japan's most famous and notorious photographer. In a culture where complete female nudity is frowned upon even in men's magazines, Araki has been acclaimed and condemned for his photo books and exhibitions which usually focus upon women, usually nude and often in bold (and Read More

Takeshis'

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Beat Takeshi Kitano, Kotomi Kyono, Kayoko Kishimoto

Synopsis: In the latest film by Japanese television comic-turned-cinema auteur Takeshi Kitano, a soft-spoken convenience store cashier named Takeshi Kitano finds his fate inexplicably intertwined with that of ubiquitous Japanese showbiz star Takeshi "Beat" Kitano. At times running parallel and at other Read More

Dolls

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Miho Kanno, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Tatsuya Mihashi, Chieko Matsubara, Kyoko Fukada

Synopsis: Master filmmaker Takeshi Kitano returns behind the camera for the first time since his indifferently received English-language effort Brother (2000) with this operatic tale of lost love. Dolls takes puppeteering as its overriding motif -- specifically, the kind practiced in Bunraku doll theater Read More

Zatoichi

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Beat Takeshi Kitano, Tadanobu Asano, Michiyo Okusa, Yui Natsukawa, Guadalcanal Taka

Synopsis: Beat Takeshi Kitano directs and plays the title role in this tribute to the wildly popular "blind swordsman" of Japanese cinema who was the hero of more than 20 movies and a television series from the early '60s to the late '80s. In Kitano's version, Zatôichi wanders into a town harassed by Read More

Blood and Bones

Actors: Beat Takeshi Kitano, Hirofumi Arai, Tomoko Tabata, Jô Odagiri, Kyoka Suzuki

Synopsis: Yoichi Sai directs Takeshi "Beat" Kitano in this adaptation of the popular Yang Seok-il novel concerning a violent, ruthless family patriarch whose obsession for money destroys all that surrounds him. In 1923, Kim Shun-pei left his home on a remote island south of Korea in order to seek out his Read More

Battle Royale II

Actors: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Natsuki Kato, Yuma Ishigaki

Asakusa Kid

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Danakan, Kanako Fukaura, Harumi Inoue, Saburo Ishikura, Hakase Suidobashe

Synopsis: Directed by Makoto Shinozaki, Asakusa Kid follows a fictional episode in the little known area of old fashioned Japanese vaudeville. When a college-age drifter lands at the door of a burlesque comedy troupe, he aspires to rise through the ranks of the business. He finds, however, that it isn't as Read More

Battle Royale

Actors: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda, Taro Yamamoto, Masanobu Ando, Kou Shibasaki

Synopsis: In a future where society is on the verge of collapse, the government takes drastic action against the problem of rebellious teenagers in this violent sci-fi opus from Japan. In the year 2002, Japan's economy has taken a dramatic turn for the worse, and massive unemployment and inflation have Read More

Taboo

Actors: Beat Takeshi Kitano, Shinji Takeda, Tadanobu Asano, Koji Matoba

Synopsis: After a 13-year absence, partially due to a life-threatening stroke, master filmmaker Nagisa Oshima returns to the silver screen with this revisionist samurai epic. From his first major film, Cruel Story of Youth to his most notorious work Ai no Korrida, Oshima has coupled the political and the Read More

Brother

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Tatyana Ali, Joy Nakagawa, Beat Takeshi Kitano, Claude Maki, Omar Epps, Masaya Kato, Ren Ohsugi

Synopsis: Internationally acclaimed director and Japanese media phenomenon Takeshi Kitano follows up his well-regarded Kikujiro with this straight-ahead gangster saga with a cross-cultural twist. The film focuses on Yamamoto (Kitano), a yakuza forced out of the country when a gang war all but wipes out his Read More

Kikujiro

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Beat Takeshi Kitano, Yusuke Sekiguchi, Kayoko Kishimoto, Yûko Daike, Kazuko Yoshiyuki

Synopsis: After the success of Hana-Bi (1997), Takeshi Kitano, or 'Beat' Takeshi, as he is often called, made another film in which once again he is the director, screenwriter, editor, the leading player and the talent behind the art work. Unlike many of his films about the violent lives of the yakuza Read More

Tokyo Eyes

Actors: Shinji Takeda, Hinano Yoshikawa, Kaori Mizushima, Tetta Sugimoto, Beat Takeshi Kitano

Synopsis: In this French-Japanese drama, Tokyo cop Roy (Tetta Sugimoto) is on the "Four Eyes" case, searching for punk K (Shinji Takeda), who goes about shooting at various people in positions of authority. K's thick-lensed glasses have caused him to be nicknamed "Four Eyes" in newspaper articles. Roy's Read More

Sonatine

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Beat Takeshi Kitano, Tetsu Watanabe

Synopsis: Acclaimed Japanese filmmaker, comedian, television star, author, and all-around renaissance man Takeshi "Beat" Kitano stars in this unconventional take on the crime drama. Kitano portrays Murakawa, a successful Yakuza officer who has grown weary of the violent life, so much so that he has even Read More

Fireworks

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Beat Takeshi Kitano, Kayoko Kishimoto, Ren Osugi, Susumu Terajima, Tetsu Watanabe

Synopsis: Actor and auteur Takeshi Kitano (who in Japan also uses the stage name "Beat" Takeshi, primarily for his work as a television comedian) wrote, directed, edited, and starred in this unusual crime drama. Nishi (Takeshi Kitano) is a policeman whose emotions seem to run only on two extreme paths Read More

Kids Return

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Following his 1995 brush with death in the form of a motorcycle accident, actor/comedian/writer/director Takeshi Kitano spins this wistful -- if bleak -- tale about a pair of high school buddies and their inevitable slide into adulthood. Bumptious Masaru (Kenichi Kaneko) and his quiet sidekick Read More

Gonin

Synopsis: Get Carter meets Heidegger in this slick, two-fisted gangster epic brimming with furtive sex and shocking violence. The film centers on five poster-boys of Japan's post-bubble economic malaise: Bandai (Koichi Sato), the owner of a once popular nightclub who's up to his fashionable lapels in debt Read More

Johnny Mnemonic

Actors: Henry Rollins, Keanu Reeves, Dolph Lundgren, Beat Takeshi Kitano, Ice-T, Dina Meyer

Synopsis: In a near-future world in which the fast-paced digital lifestyle has given rise to a worldwide plague called Nerve Attenuation Syndrome, Johnny (Keanu Reeves), a data courier, accepts an assignment that he hopes will allow him to pay for the restoration of the childhood memories he dumped in order Read More

Getting Any?

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Dannkann, Shouji Kobayashi, Tetsuya Yuuki, Yuuji Minakata, Ren Osugi

Synopsis: Takeshi Kitano made an international name for himself for directing films of great emotional subtlety and technical innovation such as Hana-Bi and Sonatine. This film displays none of those traits. Directed under his comedian moniker "Beat Takeshi," Kitano displays the bawdy schtick that made him Read More

Kyoso Tanjo

Crew: Screen Story

Actors: Masato Hagiwara, Koji Tamaki, Ittoku Kishibe

Synopsis: Kazuo (Masato Hagiwara) is not taken in the by phony miracles put on by the religious group he encounters during one of its tours of Japan, but he is genuinely fascinated by the conmanship of it all. The group is fronted by the sincere elderly master Tetsuharu (Koji Tamaki), who takes the Read More

A Scene at the Sea

Crew: Director, Editor, Screenwriter

Actors: Claude Maki, Hiroko Oshima, Sabu Kawahara, Nenzo Fujiwara

Synopsis: Takeshi Kitano -- who, along with directing some of the most acclaimed films of the 1990s, appears on four television shows, writes a number of newspaper columns, and somehow finds the time to crank out a book or two a year -- takes a break from his trademark two-fisted yakuza sagas such as Read More

Boiling Point

Crew: Director

Actors: Beat Takeshi Kitano, Hisashi Igawa

Synopsis: Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Kitano directs, writes, and acts in this gangster comedy about the Yakuza, the notorious criminal organization of Japan. Masahiko Ono portrays the hapless Masaki, a local baseball player and gas-station attendant who runs afoul of some local gangsters. Masaki goes to Read More

Violent Cop

Crew: Director

Actors: Beat Takeshi Kitano

Synopsis: Television comedian, author of a number of books, and star in such films as Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawerence, Takeshi Kitano stepped behind the megaphone for this two-fisted crime thriller after yakuza flick auteur Kinji Fukasaka walked off the project. Police detective Azuma (Kitano) is loose Read More

Zatoichi

Synopsis: Shintaro Katsu took his final bow as Zatoichi, the nomadic blind swordsman, in this martial arts action saga from Japan. After being released from jail on charges of petty theft, Ichi finds himself caught between two rival bands of yakuza, one of whom has obtained a cache of guns from crooked Read More

Comic Magazine

Actors: Yuya Uchida, Yumi Asou, Yoshio Harada

Synopsis: Comic Magazine is a powerhouse reenactment of a 1985 ethics scandal that rocked the Japanese journalistic world. Pop star Yuya Uchida plays a TV entertainment reporter who is egged on by his bosses to "pump up" his telecasts. He gets his opportunity when a prominent investment manager, caught in Read More

Takeshi's Castle [TV Series]

Actors: Beat Takeshi Kitano

Yasha

Actors: Ken Takakura, Ayumi Ishida, Nobuko Otowa, Yuko Tanaka

Synopsis: In an emotional and dramatic -- if not melodramatic accounting of a former Japanese gang member, some of the traits of the yakuza, or Japanese Mafia, are brought forward. Shuji (Ken Takakura) has taken the bold step of leaving his yakuza clan behind to start a new life in a small fishing village. Read More

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

Actors: David Bowie, Tom Conti, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Jack Thompson

Synopsis: Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence was the first English-language project of Japanese director Nagisa Oshima (Death by Hanging, In the Realm of the Senses). In tune with his previous filmic essays on racism and brutality, Merry Christmas concentrates on a war of wills between rebellious POW David Bowie Read More