Text/Zhang Shourou
Takeshi Kitano is a well-known Japanese director and actor in Japan and even the world, and many of his films are classic, such as "Kikujiro's Summer", "Humpback City", "Ryuzo and His Party of Seven", "Extremely Evil" trilogy, "Hanabi" and so on.
One of the characteristics of Kitano's films is that many of his films are based on gangsters, and his gangster films are quite famous in the film industry, such as his "Extremely Evil" trilogy.
In fact, before the "Extremely Evil" trilogy hit, Kitano Takeshi had made a gangster movie, and it was also very classic, this movie was "Big Guy".
"Gangster" is a drama film directed by Takeshi Kitano and starring Takeshi Kitano, Masaya Kato and others. The film tells the story of Yamamoto, who was abandoned by the gang, and established a gang in the United States.
The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2000 and was released in Japan on January 27, 2001.
Compared with "Extremely Evil", it takes place in Japan, while "Gangster" mainly takes place in the United States. Takeshi Kitano plays a gang member, Yamamoto, but he is banished by the organization, so he comes to the United States to join his brother.
Because of his boldness, Yamamoto soon became popular in the United States and formed a gang.
The gang was once prosperous, but as portrayed in many movies, the gang yamamoto founded eventually collapsed.
I found a reporter's interview with Takeshi Kitano on the Internet about the film. This interview is Takeshi Kitano's view of the film, which is helpful for us to understand the film, and is appended below:
Reporter asked: What do you think the focus of "Big Guy" is about?
Takeshi Kitano: This is a story about Japanese gangsters. Their lives are isolated so that they can die at any time without any concern. They also have wives, certainly not the kind of people in their ordinary lives. They don't get married because they know they could die at any moment.
The reporter asked: Do you believe in their creed yourself?
Takeshi Kitano: Of course, their values are not entirely desirable. I'm not going to make them heroes like other Japanese gangster movies. These gangsters in my film are not heroes. They are stupid and short-sighted.
Reporter asked: Do those gangsters like your movies?
Takeshi Kitano: I have a lot of fans who are these so-called gangsters, but not because of my films, but because of the way I live in this circle. I'm a person with an extraordinarily strong personality, and I don't like hierarchical views, so I often clash with these things. That's why they like me. I know they love my Hanabi.
The reporter asked: How do you know about them?
Takeshi Kitano: Ok. I've met the boss of The Second Largest Gang in Japan. That time I was suddenly kidnapped, I thought, maybe my life was in danger. They took me to a resort in the mountains and it turned out that the eldest daughter wanted to see me, and she was a fan of mine.
Reporter asked: Do you think "The Big Guy" is the most violent one in your film?
Takeshi Kitano: To be precise, I don't want to make a very violent film. In fact, I initially handed over to the producers a three-hour version, but the contract was supposed to be a two-hour film, so I had to cut out an hour. And the editing makes those violent scenes more prominent and more dramatic. Strangely enough, I've been running into these questions about violence a lot since Hanabi. So I decided to make a film without violence, which is "Kikujiro No Natsuki".
From this visit, we can see that although Kitano Takeshi is keen on shooting gangster movies, he has a negative attitude towards gangsters in his heart. This can also be seen in the fact that the gangsters in his gangster movies have no good end.
Of course, we can also see the origin of Takeshi Kitano's filming of "Kikujiro's Summer".
Takeshi Kitano portrays the opposite of the gang for us in a positive way, and this positive and negative is actually the expression of Kitano Takeshi's own innermost thoughts, that is, life is beautiful, and we should also treat it with a beautiful attitude.
2019.09.02Made in Beijing