Critic's Notebook

It’s always delightful when a beloved director decides to do a silly one. Based on the overexcited cheers and fervent applause at the piracy warning – not even the opening credits! – before the first press screening at the Venice Biennale, “Broken Rage” is going to be met with howls of delight wherever it goes. It’s a 62-minute-long parody of crime cinema, written, edited and directed by Takeshi Kitano, starring himself. It is also an entirely coherent cinematic experience even as it twists in upon the story it is telling; and it makes the delightful choice of getting stupider by the second. This is unlikely to be the capstone to Mr. Kitano’s career, but regardless “Broken Rage” obeys two important showbiz adages: always leave them laughing; and always leave them wanting more.

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Festival de Cannes

MOVIE REVIEW
Kubi (2023)

By SARAH MANVEL

The opening shot of the film is of crabs crawling out of a corpse’s spinal cavity, from the space where a head normally rests on a neck. And if you think that’s gory you ain’t seen nothing. Writer-director Takeshi Kitano has made a movie which required over 80 swordfight specialists to be thanked in the credits, and in which so many people are stabbed, shot, burned, decapitated or otherwise that the kill count is likely in the thousands, but somehow the mayhem is entirely watchable. It’s not played for laughs but it’s not done as torture porn, either. This is a balance that’s virtually impossible to achieve but Mr. Kitano has done it. “Kubi” is quite the sensation.

Continue reading “An Exercise in Feudality” »