Word: takeshi
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Stand-up comic, TV host, auteur?Takeshi Kitano has never been shy about meeting a challenge. With each movie in his ultra-violent oeuvre, the 56-year-old Kitano has raised the critical stakes to become one of Japan's best filmmakers. Along the way, he's defined an original film persona, that of "Beat" Takeshi, the artful gangster. But in his newest movie, Zatoichi, a don't-call-it-a-remake of one of the country's longest-running and best-loved film series, and which opened last Saturday in Japan, Kitano is facing the biggest challenge...
...ARTS Film: Takeshi Kitano's Zatoichi Meet the Beat: Filmography...
...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. It's more like it was an order." Anyone who tried to give a Kitano character an order in one of his movies...
...knows I did a lot for 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...
...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 Masayuki Mori, president of Kitano's production company and a producer of the film. "When Takeshi's mother died, she said, 'Oh well, now I am his mother...