The film title’s apostrophe is deliberate’the plural made possessive. Takeshi is Kitano Takeshi, one of Japan’s foremost film writers, directors and stars. The name of his new movie not only loosely translates as Takeshi dies, but also suggests the film belongs to multiple Takeshis. And so it does.

Takeshis’ is a remarkable piece of work that is hilarious, self-referential, action packed and mind-boggling. Kitano plays an idealised version of himself, a film superstar who bumps into a lookalike movie extra with the same name’also played by Kitano! And then things start getting complicatedÔøΩƒ∂

We may be watching one or both of these characters making a movie within a movie. Or one of the characters fantasising about living the other’s life’a lengthy satire about violence and fate. Or we may be watching something surprisingly poignant as the almost forgotten pre-credit sequence comes into play.

In Takeshis’, actors playing various characters using their names, turn up in multiple scenes as different personas. The hilarious auditions the luckless ‘nobody Kitano’ attends are replayed as real-life events. Completely surreal interludes are included for no discernable reason’I'm still scratching my head about the two jolly Sumo wrestlers on a cliff headbutting a papier m‚àöÔøΩch‚àöÔøΩ caterpillar into the ground!

However, the film abounds with biographical references about the real Takeshi and contains elegant parodies of his previous movies and careers. Takeshis’ is completely absorbing both in trying to keep up with the levels of reality (or lack thereof) in the plot, the doubling up of performers and scenes, the recurring dialogue, and the wonderful madcap humour of it all.
Just go and see Takeshis’ÔøΩÔøΩit’s in a league all of its own.

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