Kikujiro No Natsu (DVD) (English Subtitled) (Japan Version)

Product Description

Kitano Takeshi is one of the most representative figures of Japanese cinema, be it as an actor or as a director. His distinct style & aesthetic, characterized by unflinching violence, bizarre surrealism, & deadpan black humor, has brought him awards & acclaim the world over, but the maverick director cannot be so easily pinned down. Kitano threw something of a curveball in 1999 with Kikujiro, an off-beat road movie that pairs together two unlikely travel mates. Though Kitano is known overseas for his cool & inscrutable film personae, in his native Japan he is still best known as a comedic figure, after years of manzai comedy & hosting wacky television shows. All of his films have an underlying current of quirky humor, & this comic side of Kitano is most evident in the lighthearted, oddly endearing Kikujiro, which almost resembles a series of television sketches in framework. The film has a lighter core, & certainly less blood, than other Kitano films, but features many of the elements that set apart a Kitano Takeshi film including idiosyncratic characters, quirky moments, taciturn screenplay, & a Hisaishi Joe film score.

For summer vacation, ten-year-old Masao (Sekiguchi Yusuke) decides to embark on a trip to find his mother who abandoned him when he was an infant. After some haggling from his wife (Kishimoto Kayoko), layabout middle-aged neighbor Kikujiro (Kitano Takeshi) ends up chaperoning Masao on his journey. The irresponsible Kikujiro, however, promptly loses all their money, leaving the pair in a financial limbo. To continue on their trip & keep spirits high, the two resort to hitchhiking, swindling, & general tomfoolery, encountering a host of strange personalities & peculiar adventures along the way.