| In The Beginning | |
| Takeshi Kitano was born the 18th of January 1947, and was the last of four
offspring born to a working-class couple in downtown Tokyo. His father, Kikujiro, was a loveable thirsty craftsman, in lacquer and paint.
Takeshi describes his relationship to his father: "I almost never talked to my father. When we brothers heard his footsteps, we ran away and hide. I suspect that he was a member of the yakuza. But to provide his family he was forced to work as a housepainter." His mother, Saki, was a woman with a fierce drive to keep her family afloat and her kids in school. Even though it meant doing peacework day and night in their home. During Takeshi's youth the Kitano household had known very hard times, but was far from destitute. "My family didn't allow me or my brothers to see films or read comics or novels. In that post-war period the whole emphasis was an economic growth. Films were out. That's why I studied engineering! I never really knew the worlds of movies and Manga existed until I reached college". Takeshi's family became the first family on their street, to get a TV in 1956. And their house became a kind of community center. "I remember my neighborhood as being like one big family. People still growing vegetables in nearby fields and washed them in the river, boys chased butterflies and dragonflies, their moms chatted at the public baths while their dads tipped a few at the bar on the corner". Takeshi made it to college but, to the shock of his mother, he dropped out in his third year. "My dream was to work for Honda. But it was the late 60's, there was a big student movement that came over from France, and people who studied philosophy, Marx and Lenin had a higher status. I felt if I could join them, I could meet more girls, so I cut classes...Eventually I dropped out and went to work in a strip joint". |
| The Two Beats | |
| He started to work as a janitor and coffeehouse waiter. In 1972 he took the job as an elevator boy at the strip joint. The same year Takeshi
met Kiyoshi Kaneko, and they formed a manzai, a crosstalk duo, called "The Two Beats". (His popular nickname "Beat" Takeshi, which he by
the way he still uses when he is acting in movies, comes from this time) And began sharing nightclub stages with the strippers.
"The Two Beats" were the "alternative comedians" of their day. Especially popular with students and the younger generation for their
hyper-rapid, risqué and irreverent routines. 1974 a TV producer saw them perform, and two years later they captured top comic honors
on NHK, Japans largest network. "After I got into the entertainment world I was once arrested by the police, and of course there was this accident. (The moped accident in August 1994) On each occasion, I was told I was finished, but I came back. That's why I like the notion of a return match". |
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