首 「Kubi」
Release Date: November 23rd, 2023
Duration: 131 mins.
Director: Takeshi Kitano
Writer: Takeshi Kitano, Takehiko Minato (Screenplay), Takeshi Kitano (Original Book)
Starring: Beat Takeshi, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Ryo Kase, Nao Omori, Shido Nakamura II, Tadanobu Asano, Kenichi Endo, Susumu Terajima, Kenta Kiritani, Jun Soejima, Ittoku Kishibe, Yoshiyoshi Arakawa, Kanji Tsuda,
Website Twitter: @kubi_movie IMDB JFDB
Kubi is the 19th film by Takeshi Kitano and it is based on a desire he conceived 30 years ago to retell the events surrounding the infamous Honno-ji Incident of 1582. So old is the project that Akira Kurosawa had shown an interest in the work and it was adapted into a novel before it made it to the cinema screen. Was the wait worth it?
Yes. Kubi is the sort of bigger crowd-pleasing film Kitano used to make before he went fully into the surrealism (Takeshis’, Achilles and the Tortoise) and nihilism (The Outrage trilogy) that defined his post-Zatoichi (2003) output. Essentially, Kubi is Kitano having fun with familiar thematics and style in a historical setting and showing that he may be 77, but he is still one of the most vital directors out there.
This blackly comic and bloody movie, shows the last days and fiery end of the legendary Oda Nobunaga (Ryo Kase) who, during his campaign to unify Japan, will be betrayed and assassinated during the Honno-ji Incident at the hands of his retainers Hideyoshi Toyotomi (Takeshi Kitano) and Mitsuhide Akechi (Hidetoshi Nishijima) when the question emerges of who shall rule Japan after the violence stops.
We watch as various warlords jockey for position, hatch dastardly plots, perform power plays in military campaigns, and constantly try to outwit one another. Caught up is a whole cast of characters from across the country, from bumpkin feudal lords to errant wily generals who are romantically infatuated with or poisonously hateful of each other. Outside of the upper echelons are peasants hoping to move up the social order by proving themselves in combat and claiming a samurai’s head while cunning ninja and tea masters trying to influence events from the shadows.
To make history come alive, Kitano assembles a mighty ensemble of actors who lift the atmosphere and material of a film that barrels through a lot of carnage, many conversations, and lots of comedy by making it sparkle with gleefully manic energy as they portray characters trying to surf the chaos with their big egos.
This is an epic film but, in essence, Kubi is Takeshi Kitano doing what he often does best: making a story about men forced to act in ridiculous ways because they are trapped in ridiculous systems. Women don’t feature much, just big male egos bumping together in love, politics, and war.
While the film covers a massive amount of events and features lots of conversations, the screenplay feels really tight and there is no sense of sagging pacing or any confusion as to where everyone and everything stands. It helps that Kitano is playing with familiar relationship mechanics so he can cut to the quick, highlighting just the important information and throwing in comedy and action to change the tone and pacing. In between are a few punctuations of large-scale action scenes.
In the build-up to the release of the film, Takeshi Natsuno, president and representative director of Kadokawa studio said of Kubi,
“It is a rare film, on a scale similar to Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai and Kagemusha, with a tragicomic quality that feels Shakespearean.”
That assessment is pretty accurate as the scale of the action in Kubi runs close to the bloody and muddy scenes of The Seven Samurai while the deal making and breaking is akin to the likes of Kagemusha. The two forms marry together well enough so that this is the most epic Kitano film yet. The film certainly looks stunning, as the cast don eye-catching costumes (designed by Kazuko Kurosawa – Akira Kurosawa’s daughter) and wield props/weapons with aplomb, masses of men and horses are seen on screen enough times to really get the heart racing at the sense of scale and the eyes dazzled by castles like Himeji so that this ranks as an impressive film to watch but it is all in service to comedy as he never loses sight of the gag at the heart of Kubi: everyone is so desperate to take each other’s heads that they become grotesque and lose sight of how they might lose theirs.
Kitano’s typical metier is yakuza/crime films feature fatalistic thugs often throwing their lives away over notions of honour and duty. Think Sonatine (1993). Similar things are afoot in Kubi, albeit, this is set in the jidaigeki format, one he last visited with 2003’s Zatoichi. The difference here is that Kitano amps up the violence to preposterous levels. Think Getting Any? as he throws in numerous beheadings, wild homosexuality, and weird S&M dynamics between Nobunaga and his generals – including wild sex and torture – and flying ninja. His intent seems to be to make these samurai and historical figures more buffoonish than they are typically depicted as being while also exposing the hypocrisies and arrogance of the samurai class. It works as audiences will find lots to laugh at – outrageously so in sequences, such as Tokugawa Ieyasu’s (Kaoru Kobayashi) body doubles saving him from assassination – while also presenting a critique of those who mindlessly follow absurd social mores.
The clearest-eyed character’s in the film are those who operate outside of the system, particularly Toyotomi, a peasant who rose to power and bears resentment that he is looked down upon and while he disdains the system, he cannot escape playing the game. It is at this locus of reality and silly social strictures that the film works best as comedy and also opens the way to plot developments as people play dirty politics.
The overall effect of this mix is that the whole film is fun for audiences to enjoy having these problems pointed and all of the cast look like they are enjoying playing off each other – Tadanobu Asano, smirking as he deliberately gives out bad advice to peasant’s with tunnel vision for glory, Kitano and Nao Omori having a great manzai act as constantly bickering brothers, and Ryo Kase going absolutely insane, like a person with a child’s mind in a warlord’s body. His deadpan and devilishly over-the-top delivery makes him like some Tex Avery character made flesh and blood. Kitano has assembled the best cast, so much so that some scenes have a feeling of ad libbing, so good is the chemistry and timing where the jokes are allowed to enter a scene and characters allowed to crash into each other.
In many ways Kubi feels like a return to form for Kitano as the jokes click really well and the action feels epic enough and it is smooth. This is a great work from a master film director. There’s not a whole lot of Japanese filmmakers who could walk the line between bloody satire and serious social critique with gay samurai but that is Kitano who is able to transform everything into something sharper, leaner, and meaner with his dark humour.
Kubi was screened at Japan Cuts on July 16th at 21:00. Japan Cuts runs from July 10th—21st, 2024 and features a wealth of classics, documentaries and fiction features and shorts. Here’s something of a preview of the titles playing. Check back here for coverage.