90 year-old cinema veteran Takeo Kimura directs his first feature film

by Chris MaGee

Haven’t heard of Takeo Kimura? I won’t be a film snob and puff myself by saying that I was 100% familiar with this Japanese cinema veteran before I started doing some quick research into his career, but all I can say now is, “What a career!” Over six decades Kimura has done production design and art direction on landmark films directed by some truly legendry names: “Gate of Flesh” and “Fighting Elegy” directed by Seijun Suzuki, “Rikyu” directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara, “Himatsuri (Fire Festival)” directed by Mitsuo Yanagimachi, and these are just the tip of the iceberg. Oh, and did I mention that he also wrote the screenplays for Seijun Suzuki’s most admired/ reviled film “Branded to Kill” as well as writing its loose sequel “Pistol Opera”? I can see you’re impressed as I was.

Over his long and storied career Kimura has only taken on directing duties a couple of times for some short film work, but now Nippon Cinema has the truly exciting news that Kimura is making his feature film directing debut… at 90 years of age!

“Yume no Manimani” tells the story of the relationship between the dean of a college, played by Hiroyuki Nagato, and a brash, headstrong student, played by Yoshio Inoue. Dealing with this troubled youth brings back memories of the war and of Hiroshima for the elderly man. Besides Nagato and Inoue the film has a fantastic supporting cast that includes Tadanobu Asano, Rie Miyazawa and Masatoshi Nagase.

I’d strongly encourage you to follow the link above to check out the full trailer for “Yume no Manimani”. It’s set for release in Japan on October 18th, but I’m hoping beyond hope that this sees some kind of release in North America.