Outside Japan, he’s known as a film director, within the country he’s a famous comedian. The man has triumphed in two different fields.
DVD cover for "Oretachi, hyokinzoku", Takeshi dressed up as "Takecyan-Man"
When I was a girl, one of my favorite shows on TV was Oretachi, hyokinzoku ("We’re a funny family"). The program featured Takeshi Kitano disguised Take-cyan Man, a super-hero who always managed to mess things up.
After all these years, we still see him on TV every day. He’s the great comedian known as Beat Takeshi. However, in the rest of the world, he’s better known as a director. Would you like to know about Takeshi Kitano’s career as a comedian?
His childhood and adolescence
He was born in 1947. As a boy he got good grades and often played sports. However, he suffered various ups and downs during his days at university. He chose to major in Mechanical Engineering, but he didn’t make much of an effort to study and ended up dropping out (although recently he was awarded an honorary degree for having made the university famous throughout the world).
He started tramping about, living at a friend’s house, and working short-term jobs. For a while, he was totally into Jazz. He was also a construction worker, a waiter at a cabaret, a gas station attendant... At one point, he wanted to be a translator and he actually worked driving a taxi so he could save money to study English abroad.
How he became Beat Takeshi
Following this turbulent time, he decided to become a comedian. In 1974, he paired up with another young man called Manzai . They were not successful at first, but when they changed their name to Two Beat and Takeshi began calling himself Beat Takeshi they became a hit. Even though their brand of humor received much criticism because of the cruelty of their jokes, they attracted a wide audience. The following video is a sample of one of their acts. Takeshi is the one who talks a lot.
After the Manzai period
Since his stage name was now well-known, he started working on his own presenting various programs, some of which he created himself, for instance Takeshi-jyo (literally Yellow Humor- known in English as Takeshi's Castle). The following video is a comedy show called Oretachi, hyokinzoku. Takeshi is the reader and this time he appears with a great musician: Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Thanks to his intelligence, knowledge and experience, he began to appear on more serious programs covering education, culture, mathematics, politics, art. .. although he always added his special touch of humor. When he appears on these shows he is not Beat Takeshi, he’s Kitano Takeshi.
To date, he’s had 50 TV shows of his own (8 of them are currently on the air) as well as 3 radio programs. He’s made advertisements, many TV series and has published over 70 books. He also started developing his own video games. In addition, he also works in film: he’s acted in 19 films and has directed 14.
His hobbies
He’s always been very fond of mathematics and art. He once confessed that if he hadn’t become a comedian, he would’ve liked to have been a mathematician. His favorite sports are baseball and boxing. But, beyond a doubt, his most curious hobby is tap dancing. He started tap dancing before Two Beat was founded and has been practicing daily ever since. He’s reflected this fondness in the film Zato-ichi, in which the actors also tap dance.
Curioblog
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DVD cover for "Oretachi, hyokinzoku", Takeshi dressed up as "Takecyan-Man"
