Actor/director Kitano “Beat” Takeshi (58) expressed satisfaction at the bemused faces of people who had just watched the opening of his latest movie. Kitano has said that he wants “Takeshis'” to confuse people and that he doesn’t care whether it loses money. The story, which features Kitano playing himself and another identical character and is jumbled and non-linear to say the least, seemed to achieve its first aim, but full houses in the 153 cinemas nationwide where it opened yesterday attest to the popularity of the man many consider Japan’s greatest living director. Kitano is of course originally a vaudeville and comedy star and continually cracks jokes even about his more serious work. But he doesn’t seem to aiming for laughs when he says that his latest feature is just something he’s been wanting to get out of his system for over a decade. Having achieved both critical and box-office success, most recently with 2003’s “Zatoichi,” he felt the time was right to put this project on celluloid.
• All-female theatrical troupe Takarazuka set out for Korea yesterday. They will put on a series of three performances of their most famous production, “The Rose of Versailles” in Seoul, as part of the 40th anniversary of normalization of relations with Japan. It is the 24th Takarazuka overseas tour but the first to Japan’s closest neighbor, and it will be the first chance for foreign audiences to see “Rose…”. Kozuki Wataru will play the role of Swedish nobleman Count Axel Fersen, who had an adulterous affair with the tragic French queen Marie Antoinette.