It's been nine long years since Japanese icon Takeshi Kitano drew a line under his impressive run of superviolent gangster pics, with Brother. Since then there've been comedies and the brilliant samurai semi-musical Zatoichi, and Kitano has been a bit equivocal about the head-stomping and eye gouging that made his name (at least internationally). "Embarrassing" was one of the words he used.
So he's either relented or come up with a new spin on his formula of quiet stoicism interspersed with sporadic bursts of jawdropping maiming. He has written the script and will direct and star in Outrage, which involves "power struggles among Tokyo gangsters". The co-production between Warner's Japanese arm and Kitano's own Office Kitano is scheduled for release next year.
Kitano first came to the attention of western audiences with Violent Cop in the early 90s, closely followed by Boiling Point, Sonatine and Hana-Bi. The latter two in particular are almost competely unique in their melding of beautiful and ugly and meditative and violent. It always pained us to think that their director had completely abandoned his signature style, which makes Outrage very welcome news indeed. Welcome back, sir.