Word: kitano
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...Delon and Eastwood films could seduce viewers into the world of mean men because their stars were beautiful. Kitano is not beautiful or ingratiating; not tall or slim or conventionally graceful. Chatty and capering on TV, he is typically mute and blocky in films. His face has the puffiness of a club fighter's after a beating. Yes, that face was partly paralyzed and rearranged in his 1994 motorcycle accident, but the only visible difference is a scar. Besides, his expression was always immobile. The movie Kitano was never exactly Jim Carrey...
...first film as actor-director, Kitano played a policeman too violent for his department; in his next, the 1990 Boiling Point, he's Uehara, a gangster too violent for the yakuza. The movie is mainly about two baseball-crazy kids who run afoul of the mob; Kitano shows up for about a half hour before some unfriendly types splatter him across his car upholstery. But this wild man had it coming. In an interlude between gunplay, he watches a couple have sex. "My turn," he chirps. He pushes the woman aside?and jumps...
...films in 11 years as actor-auteur?and perhaps catching him as an actor in art films (Nagisa Oshima's Gohatto), nihilist teen epics (Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale) and a Hollywood thriller (the Keanu Reeves Johnny Mnemonic)?may not know that films are a kind of hobby for Kitano. How could he have time to do anything else? But of course he does: he's on TV nearly seven hours a week...
...directorial debut, Violent Cop, the stolid face and avenging-devil persona emerged fully formed, fists and feet blazing. The film begins with punks beating an old man senseless. One of the kids goes home; Officer Asuma (Kitano) walks into the boy's bedroom and whacks him silly. "I did nothing," the lad protests. "Then I've done nothing," the violent cop replies...
...Kitano took over direction of Violent Cop after Fukasaku dropped out. He didn't plan the film or write it. But it's all Kitano in its charting of an arid landscape with no easy signposts. No sentimentality here?indeed, no evident feeling. He seeks no sympathy for Asuma. The man needn't be attractive, only compelling. If you want to idolize or iconize him, that's your business...