Takeshis' (2005)

As I wrote yesterday I am a Takeshi Kitano fan and therefore probably better placed to enjoy his new film than a viewer who might be less familiar with his work.  I am hard-pressed to describe this simply, since it mixes fantasy with bits from previous films to form a kind of "Takeshi's Greatest Hits".  He plays himself in his Beat Takeshi persona as a Japanese icon of both violence and humour; he also plays (in his bleached Zatoichi hairdo) a convenience store clerk who dreams of success as an actor because of his resemblance. This all gets intertwined with characters from his other movies and presumably from his popular TV shows in Japan and includes traditional transvestite dancers, energetic tap-dancers and characters that  die but won't stay dead.  The would-be Kitano finds that increasing violence and bloody gun-play bring him nearer to the world of his hero, but the actor-director seems to be saying that all is illusion -- that none of this is real.  An amusing, fascinating and perplexing film.