Wow, Kitano does get stranger as he gets older, and here he seems to be completely deconstructing his whole evil gangster persona once and for all, laying it to rest in this strange doppelganger tale filled with a mixture of dreams and reality. In the film he actually plays himself as well as a strange other who has a failing acting career because of his resemblance to the real Kitano, and we see his life from 2 perspectives, on based in reality and one that is fantasy, where he is not popular and he dreams of being his gangster persona for real, but it never quite works out. It has many shades of Hana Bi and Sonatine, and just rips them apart. The plot is constantly wrapping it self back into self so you never know which version of Kitano you are watching or even if there are 2 Kitanos’ in this film at all. I certainly don’t recommend this film to someone who has not seen a Kitano film, but for someone who has seen all of his films it really should be seen in all it’s strangeness.

REVIEW CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS…

The film starts with a world war 2 scene, with dead Japanese soldiers all around, and an American soldier comes in when one of the soldiers stirs and it is Kitano Takeshi. We then cut to a gangster scene, where Kitano has a Mexican standoff with another gangster and both sides all draw guns and even machine guns, and Takeshi shoots, and ends up the last one standing as everyone else dies, and then we pull back to reveal that this is on a TV screen as Kitano plays mahjong with friends and loses. He comes out to his car with his manager Osugi Ren and his girlfriend Kyono Kotomi, and heads to the TV studio where he is to shoot today in his final shot, a special effects shot, once again playing a gangster. While there he runs into an old acquitance (long time collaborator Sususmu Terajima) who he dismisses but is introdced to another actor who has a bad career because he is Kitano’s twin in looks, so he works at a convenience store making a living.

We then follow this doppelganger who is always going out and being dismissed from auditions, usually by the same woman who is stalking Kitano, and he has Kitano’s fan who has been trying to give him a gift following him and giving him a bobble head gift. In this world his next door neighbor is a punk gangster Susumu Terajima again with his girl being Kyono Kotomi, and Osugi Ren is a cab driver. We delve into this Kitano’s strange dreams with gangsters, dead bodies, taxi rides, and he takes guns from a gangster who hides at his convenience store kills his neighbor Susumu Terajima and takes his girl and goes on a fantasy killing spree as the Kitano gangster he sees on the screen, though no one stays dead, and on the beach (a la sonatine) he even kills them multiple times as a line of police stand behind, and then the cast runs at him in samurai outfits, and he kills them again. Then the doppelganger awakes and takes a knife and goes and kills the real Takeshi, who we see is having the dream while he gets tattoos painted on, and we even see him playing the convenience store clerk.

All of the reality is strangely meshed together, including a strange breakdown dance sequence with some awesome tap dancing in the middle.

This is obviously about Kitano’s identity and that his audience doesn’t really know it, but other than that I cannot say more, as the film is pretty damn obtuse.

Interesting to note that there are quite a few moving shots in the film, which is something Kitano was ever known more, he seems to be growing in his filmmaking as he leaves gangster films behind him with this strange tale.