It’s a very brief [5 questions via E-mail] and not wholly satisfying interview but it gives just a taste of what should be a film of true Kitano style and brutality.
- First generation Korean-Japanese Kim Jun-pyeong, the man you played in the film, is a man who rules his kingdom through money and violence. What do you think made him that way?
“This was a film depicting the time I lived through. Only through violence could you build relations between families. It was a twisted time. When I was growing up in Tokyo’s Adachi District, there were lots of “‘little Kim Jun-pyeong’s.’”
- Do you agree with communication with the world through the language of sex and violence?
“I find it hardly convincing. But in the film, there is a scene of Kim bathing his young lover Kiyoko, who has is bedridden with a brain tumor. At that time, he becomes tender, as if he were a different person. I thought I knew why Kim used violence at that time. It was in his heart. Perhaps the other side to the violence.”
- Many people say Kim and you overlap. Do you find that offensive?
“I think that’s because I’ve often taken frightening parts or roles of brutal criminals. Even my wife said the character was just like me. Whether that’s abuse or praise, I don’t know. Anyway, to play this really mean and vulgar middle-aged man, I worked up the determination and went to the gym to work out. But I wanted to keep the belly. I wanted to look like a sinister, pot bellied middle aged man.”
- What did you enjoy most about just acting this time around?
“It was great to play an old man on crutches toward the end of the film. It seemed like the first time I had engaged in actor-like acting.”
- There must have been pain involved as well…
“On the 31st day of shooting, I separated my right shoulder, and it was like hell afterwards. Moreover, I had to deliver lines in the Osaka and Jeju dialects, so it was quite difficult.”
Click here to read the full article with Takeshi Kitano about Blood and Bones.
via Chosun.
