Quotes

One thing I hate in movies is when the camera starts circling around the characters. I find that totally fake.

I wanted to make a movie that can't be pigeonholed. I want audiences to come out of this film not knowing what to say or what to think. [on making Takeshis' (2005)]

The film is ambiguous, an ambiguity that reflects on Japan today, and a world in which nothing is clear. Once I made the film [Takeshis' (2005)], I realized it was about this feeling of vague disquiet in Japan and in the rest of the world, a feeling that is gaining on us, getting less vague.

I don't like the way Tarantino treats violence. Pulp Fiction (1994) doesn't show realistic violence, but to show violence realistically, you need stamina. It's not easy.

We've all had those nightmares. But individuals don't make war. Society makes war.

My characters are oppressed, under pressure and irritated. And this impression probably affects the public, who walk out wondering, what next? Where do we go from here?

It took me ten years of playing serial killers and rapists to be perceived as a serious actor amongst the Japanese public.

When learning to play the piano, one studies various types of pieces. When one acquires the basic knowledge of these pieces, one has reached sonatine. It's not really control, but it marks the end of first stage of training.

...[Violent Cop] was shot a long time ago, when I didn't knew how to make a film. At least now, I am beginning to grasp what filmmaking is all about, gradually, so I watched it again the other day on video, so that I could comment on it during the interview, as I had forgotten almost everything about it. Frankly, I couldn't bear to watch it. It's like being forced to watch yourself when you were a kid. I felt so embarrassed.

Comedians are supposed to make people laugh by doing things they're not allowed to do. Once they start taking about family values and humanity, they're not comedians anymore.

It is OK to be laughed at on stage or on TV, doing your act, but I didn't liked to be laughed at in public. I didn't wanted to be told, I was a funny guy in my private life.

When I write a script, I have the entire film in my head, so when we start shooting, I just do it. Im more interested in the editing process, so I tend to shoot in a hurry. Maybe you don't always have enough footage, but how you play around with it, is what is interesting.

I wanted to make fun of my own jokes, and send them up. So I made up new routines which were more outrageous than the silliest ones I usually invent. I wanted to make myself ludicrous to the point where viewers would say, 'This guy's had it'. I enjoyed my self-mockery so much I totally lost myself in it.

I think my accident may have been a blessing in disguise. It put me in a totally different frame of mind. It made me feel good about doing comedy again. I'm very happy with the way things are going now.

[on Akira Kurosawa] ...the ideal definition of cinema: a succession of perfect images. And Kurosawa is the only director who has attained that.

It's ironic: I set out to make a film without violence, and Dolls (2002) ended up becoming the most violent film that I've made.

I'm a stand-up comic, and the fact that as a stand-up comic I had this serious near-fatal accident was really difficult. A comedian's job is to make someone laugh and you can't really laugh at what I had been through after the bike accident.

Humour is like violence. They both come to you unexpectedly, and the more unpredictable they both are, the better it gets. That's how it works. If somebody slips on a banana, it's funnier if it's someone high up, like a king or an emperor, than if it's an ordinary man.

When people tell me I'm an artist, I say 'what?' It's impossible for me to take the idea seriously.