I was right, Kitano has gone mad. Kantoku banzai is a mentally insane movie… moderately funny at that I must say, but well, it’s insane even by japanese standards. My comments from another thread (the rating is almost 3, I originally was gonna give it a 3, changed it to 2,5 while writing the comments, edited it back to 3 an hour later, and then came to think of Dai nipponjin which I also gave a 3, and went back to 2,5 with Kantoku. So, it’s a border case to say at least (;D) but 2,5 is my official view till the next viewing):
Kantoku Banzai! (Japan, 2007) – 2,5/5
It’s official, Kitano has gone mad. Kantoku Banzai! makes his previous work Takeshis’ look line a coherent piece of cinema. No wonder he shot this movie in secret. While the first 40 minutes, where Kitano plays a film director with no success at the box office, actually make some slight sense, the rest is just 100% Kitano’s brain waves transcribed into film frames (and those ain’t no Hana-Bi waves). Everything is incredibly stupid and childish, but also confusing enough to be funny. Shame about Anne Suzuki’s talent being wasted in a mess like this, but then again, the film is all about Kitano and nobody else. I wonder if any director has ever made a film as egocentric as this before.
