Word: takeshi
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...Hollywood does…It’s all about the bottom line.” It’s hard to argue with the invisible hand of market demand. Why shouldn’t audiences be given what they want? If some (misguided) moviegoers prefer Brad Pitt over Takeshi Kaneshiro, that’s their loss...
...should we concern ourselves with this hateful tyrant, whose life the movie traces for nearly half a century starting with his immigration to Japan from Korea in 1920? The most obvious reason is that Kim is played by "Beat" Takeshi Kitano, the Japanese actor-director whose blind-swordsman movie Zatoichi won him best-director honors at last year's Venice Film Festival. Shunpei Kim is Kitano's first lead role under another director in more than a decade, and the best performance of an illustrious career. But an equally important force behind what may be this year's best Japanese...
...gripped by a need to destroy what he creates. Even as we're repulsed by Kim's violence and heartlessness, we're seduced by his survivor's charisma-in fact, Kitano's performance is so compelling that Kim's victims have a hard time competing for our compassion. "Takeshi is the only actor I know who's capable of playing such a dark character," says Sai. "I waited six years for him to accept the part, and I wouldn't have made the movie without him." Kitano, for his part, found working with Sai "educational" but traumatic. When the star...
...skip as quickly as possible to the fightin' and the lovin' of Daggers. The new film is all that it was designed to be: superbly crafted eye candy starring Zhang Ziyi and a pair of hot male stars: Hong Kong pop idol Andy Lau and Taiwan-Japanese pinup boy Takeshi Kaneshiro. Zhang Yimou's former fans may decry a lack of depth, but Daggers ultimately hits its mark...
...also perfumed by the haunting musk of death, but it's a jauntier piece, shot in luscious autumnal colors and with fabulous stunts supervised by Hong Kong-based action guru Ching Siu-tung. This time, renegade killer femmes do fantastic battle with 9th century cops (Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro) who pursue and fall in love with them. Daggers would be an excellent adventure even without its leading lady. But as the new embodiment of Chinese beauty and resilience, she gives the film a kind of buoyant gravity. Daggers is serious and it soars...