Japanese icon Takeshi Kitano offered a surprisingly candid admission about his Venice Film Festival appearance for “Broken Rage” last year: he barely remembers it, having suffered a concussion en route to the premiere after hitting his head on a motorboat.
“I actually had to go to the doctor, and they looked into my brain waves,” Kitano revealed at a Tokyo press event for the Amazon Original film. “It’s a little bit embarrassing to say that actually. For those people who were involved, they all asked me how Venice was. And I don’t actually really have anything.”
“It’s not painful, but I think when they looked into my brainwaves, it has shown that they did actually have a shock, but it’s already recovered since then, I’ve been told. But I think I might be funnier if it hadn’t been recovered actually, but I think I could then say anything that I wanted, for example. But in Venice, when I really can’t remember the festival there, I’m quite embarrassed,” Kitano added.
The incident didn’t dampen the reception of “Broken Rage,” which made history as the first Japanese streaming production selected for Venice’s out of competition section. The hour-long experimental film splits its runtime between a hard-boiled Yakuza thriller and a comedic self-parody of the same story.
Co-star Tadanobu Asano, fresh off a Golden Globe win for “Shogun,” described the film’s audience impact at its Venice premiere: “There was part A, the serious part of the film, for the first half. And at that point… they could feel the similar style of Mr. Kitano until now, saying this is going to go into a Yakuza film. When it entered into the second half, the B pattern, the first time people laughed, the whole atmosphere in the theatre changed. From there, all of a sudden, it really felt very at home, very comfortable.”
The streaming format influenced Kitano’s editing approach, resulting in a more condensed runtime than his theatrical releases. “Because I was kind of editing as if I was in my own living room, it became very short,” he explained. “When we were filming it, I wasn’t so aware of it either, but when we finished all the filming, and I was looking at the film and it was on the TV screen… there were many instances where I thought if it had been on a cinema, we’d have made it a little bit longer.”
The title “Broken Rage” serves as a self-referential nod to Kitano’s earlier Yakuza film “Outrage.” “This is, in a way, a parody of that as well, which is why the title implies a broken version of that. This is a way that I’m breaking my own film career,” Kitano said.
When asked about streaming’s impact on cinema, Kitano reflected on film’s relatively young history compared to other art forms: “Film doesn’t have the same sort of cubism, formism or impressionism. I haven’t found this yet.” He suggested that streaming could push the medium in new experimental directions, comparing it to how painting evolved through various movements.
“Amazon gave this invitation, they said, ‘Please feel free to experiment as you like,’” Kitano added.
“Broken Rage” premieres globally on Prime Video Feb. 13, starring Kitano alongside Asano, Nao Omori and an ensemble Japanese cast.
