‘Beat’ Takeshi Kitano’s Kikujiro Plays Cute, Rather Than Cool
By Kimberly Chun

Director and actor Takeshi Kitano has one of the hardest faces in Japanese film. Even before his near-fatal motorcycle accident, which temporarily paralyzed half his face, he had the cruel, cold, granite countenance of a shark. Kitano looks like a man with something—something very sick—to hide, and he’s used that to his advantage, playing a sadistic officer in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence and assorted cops and yakuza in his own films. But what that poker face really conceals is a sentimental heart.

The majority of this thuggish-looking filmmaker, comedian, artist and TV personality’s earlier films, from Violent Cop to Hana-Bi (Fireworks), have been violent and chilly exercises, full of tongue-in-cheek humor, and imagery that seems inspired by the static frames of Ozu and the whimsy of Japanese advertising imagery. America had Quentin Tarantino. Kitano had the franchise of blood, guts and cheesy diners on the other side of the Pacific, north of the adrenaline-fueled Hong Kong action school. He injected a sense of Zen stoicism into the heated formula, and juxtaposed his irony with innocence—carefree moments of tough guys shooting the breeze on the beach, rather than shooting each other in the back. But even Kitano had to admit that it had become a formula of sorts. Hence, Kikujiro, which revels in the director’s sticky, sweet center.

Kikujiro is a cinematic equivalent of a child’s What I Did Last Summer report. School’s out for the season, and 9-year-old Masao (Yusuke Sekiguchi) has nothing to do. He lives with his grandmother, his father is dead, his mother is absent and his playmates have gone away for summer vacation. But after he discovers the photo and address of the mother he never met, he decides to look for her. His grandmother’s friend enlists her loutish husband Kikujiro (Kitano, who acts under his comedian pseudonym, “Beat” Takeshi) to accompany him on a trip to visit his mother.

Naturally, the role of father figure fits Kikujiro like a cheap suit, or in his case, a shrunken Hawaiian shirt. In the film’s funniest scenes, Kikujiro gambles away all the child’s money at the track after thinking that the boy would give him luck. A kid-hating, good-time bully in the W.C. Fields mold,Kikujiro heaps abuse on the shy, patient Masao, who is the perfect straight man. Penniless, they check into a hotel, buy aloha garb and sunglasses and hang out at the pool, which allows Masao and the shocked hotel employees to check out Kikujiro’s tattoo of a bloody demon and his bizarre swimming, or more accurately, drowning, technique. Kikujiro can’t afford to pay the bill, but the entertainment value of his loudmouth, brutish behavior seems to offer a kind of compensation.

The pair has no money for transportation, so they start hitchhiking. It doesn’t help that Kikujiro’s method of enticing potential drivers to give them a ride is to call them names and bark orders at them. Along the way, they meet a girl who juggles, a bleached-blonde boy who break-dances, a writer who steals produce and sells them by the side of the road, a pair of sweet-tempered bikers, and some temple festival bullies.

At the end of their journey, the duo encounter a surprise that is so devastating that Kikujiro suddenly develops a conscience, cuts the verbal abuse and gives Masao an “angel bell,” a good-luck token that he bullies out of the bikers. It’s as if the reality of Masao’s situation was too much to handle, and the film takes a turn for the sweet and goofy from which it never recovers.

The fun and games that in most Kitano movies offer brief, refreshing respites from the outbreaks of violence begin as a way to cheer up Masao and never seem to end. When two village hoodlums metamorphose into demons that resemble Solid Gold dancers, the final shreds of believability are finally dispensed with. What started out as a familiar tale of a reformed rascal and a shy orphan develops a terminal case of cuteness.

Too bad. Kitano has talked about breaking out of stereotype with Kikujiro. After films such as Sonatine and the most recent, award-winning Hana-Bi (Fireworks), he felt like he was stuck in a rut of violent gangster films, and he wanted to identify with his characters, while still “upsetting people’s expectations in a positive way.” It’s clear Kitano identified with Kikujiro. He has said that his father, a craftsman and unrepentant gambler who plunged his family deeply into debt, inspired the character. And the boy is a lot like himself, amused, scared and attached to a lovable scalawag.

But in spite of the fact that Kitano has said that this film is a departure, it doesn’t satisfy. Kikujiro may not be bathed in blood, but it retreads some familiar territory or tropes. As in many of Kitano’s films, there’s a road trip. There are fields of crops and idyllic scenes of Japan’s countryside. There are funny hats made of plants from the fields. There are comic or light-hearted moments en route, such as impromptu ball games or silly magic tricks. And there are the epiphanies when the antiheroes arrive at their final destination, which is usually the beach.

In the end, Kikujiro seems like a variation on a journey very much taken, with few new sights. The only new revelation is that Kitano can fall prey to self-indulgence, in the name of innocent fun, as easily as the next layabout.