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Genre: Comedy Drama / Road Movie / Coming-of-Age / Odd Couple Film
Plot Synopsis: Brash, loudmouthed and opportunistic, Kikujiro hardly seems the ideal companion for little Masao who is determined to travel long distances to see the mother he has never met. Their excursion to the cycle races is the first of a series of adventures for the unlikely pair which soon turns out to be a whimsical journey of laughter and tears with a wide array of surprises and odd ball characters to meet along the way.
Amazon.com Editorial Review: When words like "sweet" pop up in a review of a Takeshi Kitano film, you want to check that billing again. But yes, this really is Beat Takeshi, the funkiest dead-eyed gangster in Japanese cinema, in a gooey road movie about a glum orphan and a bumbling would-be tough guy who becomes his droopy guardian angel. The shambling walk is the same, as is the blank expression that twists into a cockeyed smile, and the film erupts (albeit infrequently) into sadistic bouts of petty violence. Takeshi is something between a gruff teddy bear and a bully as the former criminal turned unlikely babysitter who, on a whim, decides to hit the road in search of the kid's long lost mother. Whimsical adventures and silly games are punctuated by violent beatings: despite its moments of sweetness and offbeat humor, this is no family film. In one scene the downcast orphan struggles with a child molester who is trying to yank down his underwear before Takeshi rescues him. It's an uncomfortable scene that is inexplicably played for uneasy humor, the most extreme example of the film's ambiguous tone. Kitano never gets the film under control and the sweetness gets cloying at times, but he invests it with hilarious moments of bizarre, deadpan humor. Though hardly his best, this is without a doubt his strangest film to date, and that's saying something. --Sean Axmaker
Reviews: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199683/externalreviews
ALLMOViE: http://www.allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=1:180007
Rotten Tomatoes: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kikujiro/
Tomatometer: 60%
iMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199683/
iMDB Rating: 7.6/10 (4,325 votes)
French Release Date: May 20, 1999 (Cannes Film Festival)
DVD Release Date: December 12, 2000
Awards & Nominations: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199683/awards
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Specs:
Video: XviD 1.2 SMP @ ~1517 kbps
Audio: AC3 2Ch (2/0) 192 kbps
Resolution: 720 x 384
Aspect Ratio: 1.875 (15:8 )
Framerate: 23.976 fps
Qf: 0.229
Runtime: 02:01:39.167
Subtitles: English, Español, Français
OpenDML (AVI v2.0)
Interleave: 96 ms (2.3 v.frames), preload=96
Audio frames: Split across interleaves
Video: 1.28 GB (88.43%)
Audio: 167 MB (11.19%)
AVI Overhead: 5.75 MB (0.39%)
I-VOPs: 1066 (0.61%)
P-VOPs: 69984 (39.99%)
B-VOPs: 103955 (59.40%)
S-VOPs: 0 (0.00%)
N-VOPs: 0 (0.00%)
Max consecutive B-VOPs: 5
1 consec: 48.98%
2 consec: 50.34%
3 consec: 0.05%
4 consec: 0.04%
5 consec: 0.60%
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