58-year-old actor/director Kitano Takeshi, who stars in Korean-Japanese director Sai Yoichi's film "Blood and Bones", comes off as a monster. "Blood and Bones" is the record of a "beast" who lives only for his own body. Depending on the viewer, the term "beast" might not seem excessive. The film documents the tumultuous life of Kim Jun-pyeong, an abusive ethnic Korean in Japan who moves in 1923 from Korea's Jeju Island to Osaka in order to make a life for himself. It's a 2-hour, 20 minute-long blood fest. It could have been a tale of the barbarity of the age and the pain of the Korean people, but director Sai's focus was elsewhere.
Takeshi plays Kim Jun-pyeong, a historic figure who through violence and sex built his own kingdom in Osaka's Korean ghetto. His character brawls, screams and "breeds" his way through the entire film, start to finish. A renowned director with outstanding pictures like "Hana-bi" and "Zatoichi", Takeshi proved his ability as a jaw-dropping actor as well. The Chosun Ilbo conducted an interview by email with the artist.
-- 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".
