Word: takeshi
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...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...
...decidedly unsamurai blond shade he'd recently dyed it. "I think that if I tried to imitate Katsu, then a viewer would have a lot of problems with it," says Kitano. "So I thought I should make everybody think it's a completely different thing." So what else sets Takeshi Kitano's Zatoichi apart from its 26 predecessors? The auteur explains: "Throughout the film there is a feeling of fast action at the contemporary speed of the modern film." Translation: everything from the electron-quick fights to the rapier-thin characterizations is designed to move the film as fast...
...Kitano's boldest update involves the film's music, replacing traditional festive dance with hip-hop-influenced tap routines. "Takeshi has a special feeling for tap music," says Hideboh, the film's choreographer and leader of the fusion tap group the Stripes...