TAKESHIS'

Legendary Japanese director, actor and hardman, Kitano ‘Beat' Takeshi, puts the ‘gang' back into ‘doppelganger' with this hyper-real violation of the traditional rules of film form and biography.

He plays Beat Takeshi, who lives a busy, and sometimes surreal, life of a show biz celebrity. But his blonde lookalike called Kitano, a shy convenience store cashier, is still a gifted actor waiting for his big break. After crossing paths with Beat and a series of frustrating auditions, Kitano seems to strangely fall into a fantasy state highlighted by Beat's real-life and onscreen persona.

A dramatic comedy of repetitions, exaggerations and contrasts, Kitano Takeshi not only directs this unique example of cinema-within-cinema but also performs his dual roles with consummate skill. As he himself admits, “I am surprised by the strange universe I created on the big screen and how it turned out to be weirder than I expected.”
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D/S Takeshi Kitano P Masayuki Mori, Takio Yoshida WS Celluloid Dreams L Japanese w/English subtitles TD video/2005/112mins

Takeshi Kitano was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1947. His films include Violent Cop (1989), Boiling Point (1990), Hana-Bi (1997), Brother (2000) and Zatoichi (MIFF 2004)