(AFP) Cult Japanese director Takeshi Kitano has returned after greater than a decade, premiering his new movie at Cannes — a bloody quest for energy punctuated by love between warriors.
“Kubi”, exhibiting out of competitors on the Cannes Movie Pageant, is an epic account of feudal Japan paying homage to Akira Kurosawa’s basic “The Seven Samurai”.
It has been 13 years since Kitano’s final movie, “Outrage”, however the 76-year-old isn’t in need of work. In Japan, he’s finest referred to as a comic and TV host, and can be an completed author and painter.
Overseas he’s primarily recognized for his award-winning movies as actor and director, starring in 2000’s “Battle Royale”.
He returned to the French Riviera this week with what could possibly be his final function movie, set within the sixteenth century with a warlord searching for to unite Japan.
When one in every of his generals rebels in opposition to him, the opposite warlords embark on a manhunt within the hope of incomes their stripes.
However there’s additionally an sudden give attention to the amorous affairs between warriors.
“Japanese historical films rarely evoke the question of male homosexuality,” whereas it “was common at that time”, Kitano informed AFP.
It’s price range — round $11 million — is massive by Japanese requirements and Kitano’s largest thus far.
From the primary minutes, it units the tone with a monumental battle filled with beheadings and squirting blood — not unfamiliar from a director recognized for violent movies concerning the yakuza, or Japanese mafia, in movie movies like “Hana-bi”, which received the Golden Lion in Venice in 1997.
Regardless of the codes of honour and inside energy struggles, Kitano refuses to make a comparability with the yakuza.
“The word ‘violent’ can be used for these two eras but it has a totally different meaning,” he mentioned.
Kitano wrote a synopsis for “Kubi” 30 years in the past on the very starting of his directing profession.
However the challenge solely got here collectively in 2019 when he printed a novel of the identical identify.
Did he worry comparisons with Kurosawa — one in every of Kitano’s heroes.
“I tried not to watch the battle scenes in Kurosawa’s films to avoid them influencing me,” he admitted.
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