Word: kitano
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...ARTS Film: Takeshi Kitano's Zatoichi Meet the Beat: Filmography...
...Located in Tokyo's semiseedy entertainment district of Asakusa, the same streets that birthed Kitano's career, the Rokku-za strip theater has been XXX-rated since 1945, when its owners discovered what cable TV has since learned: even the dullest entertainment can be made palatable with toplessness. In the postwar years, the Rokku-za was a popular hangout for rebel intellectuals; now the club entertains sottish salarymen with nice Japanese girls and sultry Russians gyrating to pop ballads. This is, literally, Mama's house...
...After a visit with Kitano to Katsu's grave, Saito popped her question: Would Kitano be interested in doing a new Zatoichi film? Like a victim in one of his films, the cinematic tough guy never saw it coming. "He was really surprised," says Saito. "He even became speechless." At first, Kitano turned her down, thinking the only person who could ever play Zatoichi was gone. That didn't matter to Saito. "Takeshi-san said, 'Even if I say no, you're just going to keep asking me, aren't you?'" she recalls. "It's not like I was asking...
...Shintaro Katsu," she says now. "I deserve the right to do anything." She already had someone in mind, the only actor and director she believed had the toughness to play Zatoichi and the clout to turn the blind swordsman into an international name: Takeshi Kitano...
...calls Chieko Saito "Mama." To know her, it seems, is to be loved by her, or at least adopted. Her dancers "are like my children," she says. "Sometimes they would get sick, so I would dance for them." The last time she did that she was 58. Saito met Kitano in 1999 when she brought her girls on his TV program, and they quickly grew close. "When we met," she says, "it was like we'd known each other for 30 years." When Kitano's mother died that year, Saito decided he needed a little adoption. "She adores Takeshi," says...