There it is: Glory to the Filmmaker! (監督·ばんざい! Kantoku Banzai!). The new comedy film written, directed, edited and starring Takeshi Kitano. Dude #2 received his copy of this "masterpiece" yesterday and couldn't resist watching it right away of course. While he's worshiping Kitano, as well as many Asian-cinema fans do, as his one true god, I was never able to figure what's the big buzz about this guy. Sure, I enjoyed some movies of/with him but I didn't consider them genius at all. Anyway, I was provided with a short and sweet review by Dude #2 which sounds even weirder than the usual Kitano-movie this time around:The film starts as Yakuza movie. Short after that Kitano says: "Hm, I did this sort of movie for so many times already." The film starts over again. This time as drama. After a few minutes into it; Kitano: "Drama is boring." Film goes off from the very beginning again. Now it's a Samurai film. This film switching goes on for about 50 minutes and after that, the whole thing becomes nothing but pure slapstick comedy. Plus, he always carries this strange Kitano doll as his double with him. And if some action scene kicks in, you see people letting the doll fly trough the air. Everything is just totally strange.So, whether people consider him a crazy genius or just a crazy fool, he still remains completely crazy in the end I guess. I will get around seeing this pretty confusing movie myself soon I believe. And who knows, maybe I will be able to finally figure his brilliancy by then. With this in mind: KANTOKU BANZAI!
Update:
Saw it just now. Everything can be confirmed. It's one of the strangest movies ever! A story about Kitano and what film in which genre he could probably shoot next, involving totally overstretched comedy elements (which some of are actually pretty funny... e.g. a giant red plastic penis which is played as guitar, yeah!) and the fact that this whole movie is complete nonsense, make it a must-see for all trash-lovers out there. Everyone else (which doesn't thinks of himself as a great movie buff who can read the 'message within' -OR/AND- is a big fan of Kitano's work) should probably not watch this unless they are ready to have their brains melted by about 2 hours of nonsense's finest.
