Takeshis’ suggested that the great Kitano Takeshi had become the kind of post-modernist who lies awake nights alternately pondering the end of his world and his next career move--more like Woody Allen than Clint Eastwood, these days. Now Glory to the Filmmaker! is his 8 1/2, the delirium of a blocked director who thinks back ruefully over his greatest hits and the autobiographical experiences that were once such potent inspirations and decides that none of it is viable any more. Between wry and ruinous parodies of everything from Violent Cop to Dolls, the director flirts with various genres he hasn’t tried before--Ozu-style shomin-geki, love stories, noh theatre horror, apocalyptic sci-fi--and with re-runs of some that he has. (My favourite is Blue Raven: Ninja, Part II, which is probably the closest he will ever come to another Zatoichi episode.)

Of course it’s crammed with gags, some of them gleefully vulgar, but the overall tone is more elegiac than comic; the director’s alter ego this time is a punching bag with the unmistakable features of "Beat" Takeshi. Amazingly, none of it seems self-regarding, just rueful. And prodigiously inventive.

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