Revealed! Takeshi Kitano's upcoming return to yakuza films titled "Outrage"

by Chris MaGee

It's no secret that the J-Film Pow-Wow is made up of some pretty big Takeshi Kitano fans, myself probably being the biggest (although Bob Turnbull comes in a very close second), so when news broke in June that the 62-year-old comedian, TV Host, artist, writer, and of course filmmaker, was going to be returning to the genre of film that made him famous worldwide we and a lot of other people sat up and took notice. That genre of course was yakuze eiga. I mean, Kitano helped redefine the genre with such films as "Boiling Point", "Sonatine" and "Brother", so after mixed critical and commerical response to his recent personality deconstructing trilogy "Takeshis'", "Glory to the Filmmaker!" and "Achilles and the Tortoise" it was great to hear about a, for lack of a better term, this return to form. The only tting was that besides the fact that the film centered around yakuza and that Kitano would not onloy be writing and directing but also co-starring with Kippei Shiina, Ryo Kase, and Tomokazu Miura not much else was known. That all changed just a few hours ago.

Kitano's 15th feature film will be titled "Outrage" and according to Mark Schilling at the Variety.com "depicts power struggles among Tokyo gangsters," and Kitano will be playing a character named Otomo, "a low-ranking gang boss who does his superiors' dirty work." Add to that that CinemaCafe.net has posted the above promotional still from "Outrage" featuring Kitano (left), Kippei Shiina (center) and Ryo Kase (right) and us Kitano fans have a lot to be excited about.

"Outrage" is currently shooting with Warner Japan prepping it for a 2010 release... Most likely in time for Cannes, but that's just my guess. More details as they're made available.