Tetsu Watanabe Movies
- 2005
In the latest film by Japanese television comic-turned-cinema auteur Takeshi Kitano, a soft-spoken convenience store cashier named Takeshi Kitano finds his fate inexplicably intertwined with that of ubiquitous Japanese showbiz star Takeshi "Beat" Kitano. At times running parallel and at other times unexpectedly intersecting, the radically different lives of the shy everyman Kitano and superstar celebrity Kitano slowly begin to gel into a surreal fantasy of fame as the convenience store clerk and aspiring actor loses himself to fantasies of becoming his famous look-alike. When the unstable fan purchases a variety of handguns under the guise of preparing for an upcoming role, his obsession with the television and film star threatens to erupt into violence. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Takeshi Kitano, Kotomi Kyono, (more)
- 1999
Japanese director Isao Morimoto debuts with this cross-cultural romantic drama based on a semi-autobiographical novel written by Swiss-born author David Zoppetti about his feelings of isolation as a student in Kyoto. In spite of his firm command of Japanese, Boku (Edward Atterton) is frustrated by his inability to make anything but the most superficial inroads into the country's notoriously insular culture. Out of desperation, he volunteers as a reader for the blind and is paired up with the young, beautiful Kyoko (Honami Suzuki), who has been sightless since birth. Soon his visits at her family's gorgeous traditional home becomes more than charity, especially after Kyoko starts selecting erotic works for Boku to read. The blooming romance is tested first by Boku's hitch-hiking trip across Japan and then by prejudice and cultural misunderstanding. Ichigensan was screened at the 1999 Mill Valley Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Edward Atterton, Honami Suzuki, (more)
Actor and auteur Takeshi Kitano (who in Japan also uses the stage name "Beat" Takeshi, primarily for his work as a television comedian) wrote, directed, edited, and starred in this unusual crime drama. Nishi (Takeshi Kitano) is a policeman whose emotions seem to run only on two extreme paths -- either quiet contentment or brutal rage. Nishi's life is falling apart around him; his daughter was murdered, his wife, Miyuki (Kayoko Kishimoto), is dying of leukemia, his partner, Horibe (Ren Osugi), was ambushed by thugs after Nishi left him to visit his wife in the hospital and will now spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, and another cop was killed coming to Horibe's rescue. Nishi desperately wants to quit his job so he can spend more time with his dying wife, so he borrows a large sum of money from the yakuza (the Japanese mafia) and takes up a career as a painter while he cares for Miyuki. Not wanting to stay in debt to the gangsters, Nishi engineers a daring bank robbery (using his police uniform and an old auto disguised to look like a squad car) and uses the loot to pay off the yakuza and take his wife on a final vacation. However, the loan sharks are not eager to have Nishi off the hook, and they begin complaining that he still owes them interest on their loan. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Takeshi Kitano, Kayoko Kishimoto, (more)
- 1995
Juzo Itami's Minbo no Onna -- a virtual textbook on how to beat yakuza harassment -- was a big hit and almost got its director killed in the wake of a gangland knife-attack. Itami's follow-up is a light-hearted meditation on death and dying, strongly recalling Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece Ikiru. Buhei Mikai (Rentaro Mikuni) is a middle-aged film director afflicted with stomach cancer, though true to convention, he is not informed of his malady. Instead, the hard-drinking Mikai continues to direct and star in a maudlin tearjerker about, ironically, a couple stricken with cancer. Though married to his long-suffering wife (played by Itami regular and wife of the director Nobuko Miyamoto), Mikai is having an affair with his onscreen spouse (Haruna Takase). Mikai's feelings of health and well-being give way to anger and confusion when he is suddenly told that he needs an urgent operation. While in a hospital waiting room, a fellow cancer patient tells Mikai of how doctors conceal the truth from their patients. Just as Watanabe does in Ikiru, Mikai grows pale and quickly learns that he too has been a victim of the hospital's ruse. His wife -- who had cottoned on to her husband's extramarital dalliances and who was on the brink of leaving him -- rallies to his side. After a couple of desperate attempts at suicide Mikai awakes for the first time to the joys of life and family. Soon the director returns home to die, surrounded by friends and loved ones. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- 1993
- R
Acclaimed Japanese filmmaker, comedian, television star, author, and all-around renaissance man Takeshi "Beat" Kitano stars in this unconventional take on the crime drama. Kitano portrays Murakawa, a successful Yakuza officer who has grown weary of the violent life, so much so that he has even considered retirement. Thus, he is not pleased when he is asked to lead a team to help defuse a gang war in Okinawa but agrees when he is assured it will be an easy job. It proves anything but, however, and he soon finds himself in the middle of a complex, bloody conflict. Fearing that he has been set up, Murakawa withdraws to a nearby coastal town. The film takes a trademark Kitano turn at this point, moving away from the standard crime drama plot to focus on what amounts to a gangster's summer vacation, with the killers playing frisbee on the beach and taking dancing lessons. Murakawa even finds a summer romance, falling in love with a local girl who is impressed by his way with a gun. This sunny idyll cannot last forever, however, and soon the realities of the criminal life catch up with them. Seen as a prime example of Kitano's style, Sonatine features a combination of deadpan comedy and unexpectedly romantic lyricism, periodically interrupted by shockingly sudden bursts of violence. ~ Judd Blaise, Rovi
- Starring:
- Takeshi Kitano, Tetsu Watanabe, (more)
- 1992
Veteran filmmaker Juzo Itami spins this biting satire cum do-it-yourself video about the do's and don'ts of dealing with yakuza extortion techniques. The film centers on the posh Europa Hotel that lost a big conference bid to its rival; the reason was because gangsters were openly conducting business and harassing customers in the lobby. The hotel manager (Akira Takarada) drafts bellboy Wakasugi (Masahiro Murata) and pudgy middle manager Suzuki (Yasuo Daichi) into the heretofore non-existent yakuza task force. These two nice guys have no clue how to handle their sneering, loudly dressed adversaries. Paying them off only results in them demanding more money, and talking to them results only in a hail of insults. Enter Mahiru Inouye (Itami's wife Nobuko Miyamoto) -- a gutsy lawyer who is intimately familiar with Japan's newly installed anti-racketeering laws. Bribery, she tells the pair, won't stop their problem -- recording equipment, surveillance cameras, and a little backbone will. When asked if the yakuza might whack them for their defiance, Inouye laughs it off, arguing they won't risk jail killing a non-yakuza. In spite of their abusive language and menacing leers, they are first and foremost businessmen. This film proved to be so accurate about how to thwart mob shakedowns and so unflattering to the yakuza (who are used to being portrayed as latter-day samurai), that days after this film was released, Itami found himself on the receiving end of a gangland knife attack. The pugnacious director wore the resulting scars on his face as badges of honor. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Nobuko Miyamoto, Akira Takarada, (more)
In 1945, a tribunal was held to investigate atrocities committed by the Japanese upon Australian soldiers during World War II. At an internment camp, 1100 Australian soldiers were tortured and killed by the Japanese, with only 300 survivors. This horrible event was not known until a terrible discovery of decapitated corpses was made at a grisly site on Ambon Island in Indonesia after the war. Stephen Wallace directed this courtroom drama based on the incident and follows the intrepid investigator who uncovers the truth behind the missing Australian soldiers. Bryan Brown plays Captain Cooper, the prosecutor of the case, in which 91 Japanese officers and soldiers are accused of murdering the Australian prisoners-of-war. The chief defendants are camp commander Takahashi (George Takei) and Captain Ikeuchi (Tetsu Watanabe). Takahashi denies knowing anything about the atrocities, as does Ikeuchi. Nevertheless, Cooper presses on to undercover the truth. But standing in his way is the American delegation, led by Major Beckett (Terry O'Quinn). They don't want a case to go forward that would reflect badly on the Japanese high command, since General MacArthur wants to reinstate many of the Japanese officers in a new postwar Japanese order. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Bryan Brown, George Takei, (more)
Following up on his critically acclaimed, blood-splattered epic Ran, master director Akira Kurosawa looks inward with this collection of eight brightly colored dreams. The first section centers on a young boy (Mitsunori Izaki), who witnesses a forest wedding procession of fox spirits in spite of his mother's (Mitsuko Baisho) warning. The second section concerns the same lad who converses with peach-tree spirits after the trees have been cruelly cut down. This is followed by a party of mountain climbers struggling to make it back to base camp in the midst of a terrible blizzard. The fourth dream deals with a man (Akira Terao) -- a Kurosawa stand-in complete with the director's trademark floppy white hat -- who encounters ghosts of Japan's militaristic past in a forlorn tunnel. In the following dream, the same man ventures into a Van Gogh painting called The Crows and meets the artist himself (Martin Scorsese). The sixth and seventh dreams venture into nightmare territory -- one deals with a nuclear meltdown that threatens Japan while the other concerns post-nuclear mutants. In the final dream, Kurosawa meets a 103-year-old man (played by Ozu regular Chishu Ryu) in a utopian rural village. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Akira Terao, Martin Scorsese, (more)
