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Movie Review: Kikujiro (Kitano)

The title character of Kikujiro is a rude and mean criminal who is supposed to take an 8-year old boy on a trip to see his mother. At first he tries to use the boy to win money at the race track (gambling on bicycle races?) but after several crazy adventures involving bikers, artists, hotels, bus stops, child molesters, yakuza, and lots of hitchhiking, he seems to show affection for the boy. A big part of this is realizing what has happened to the boy's mother and how it is similar to his own childhood. So is it any good? Well, it is OK. The acting is entertaining, especially the more comedic secondary characters. But for me, the biggest enjoyment I got out of this was some of the japanese culture shown, especially the behavior of the various people that they tried to get rides from. How deep does the politeness of japanese society go? In the case of the hotel clerk, it went pretty far, which was surprising to me. I think my lack of understanding of some of this culture may have decreased my ability to fully appreciate this movie, since on the surface it is a pretty straightforward story. Is there more to it than that? I couldn't tell.