"
The two central characters, Masaru and Shinji, are based on boys I knew
at school. Their classmate Hiroshi, the kid who starts out as a salesman
and ends up as a taxi driver, is also based on someone I knew at that time.
There were two distinct types in the high school I went to: the elite,
the ones who studied hard and came under intense pressure from the teachers,
and the drop-outs, the one who thought it would be cool to become a Yakuza.
In KIDS RETURN I've chosen to look at kids of the second type".
( Takeshi KITANO )
Takeshi
KITANO - BEAT, Director
Director/ writer/ actor Takeshi KITANO was born in Tokyo, 18 January 1947. He entered show business as a stand-up comic in 1972 and became enormously successful as one half of the duo THE TWO BEATS - hence his nickname "Beat" Takeshi. He began acting in films in 1981 and won international attention for the first time in Nagisa Oshima's MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE. Since then Kitano has maintained an incredibly prolific and diverse career and has become Japan's foremost media personality. Kitano also writes poetry and serious novels, paints witty and acts in films for other directors ( Robert LONGO's JOHNNY MNEMONIC and Takeshi ISHII's GONIN, he also starred in the adaptation of his own novel MANY HAPPY RETURNS directed by Kyoso TANJO (1993). Takeshi KITANO turned film director in 1989 to make THE VIOLENT COP, a film he was originally contracted only to star in, and now considers film-making his first love. Like his other work, his films challenge the Japanese conformity and social taboos. After the presentation of SONATINE in Cannes 1993, his film become cult favorites in Europe and in North America, especially in Britain, where three of his films are among the all-time best selling foreign-language videotapes.
Yanagishima is a regular D.O.P. to Kitano, he collaborated with him in all his films.
