Characters in movies often exhibit a flare for the
theatrical when committing acts of violence.
Such grandeur is often facilitated by various filmmaking
techniques. One imagines that real life
sociopaths, especially the ones who do violence for a living, often go about
their business with a certain measure of casual detachment. After all, for them it’s just a job. Curiously, the sometimes ultra-violent works
of Japanese actor and filmmaker “Beat” Takeshi Kitano seems to exhibit both
emotional intensity and deadpan indifference all at once. Half of his face was paralyzed in an August
1994 motorcycle accident, diminishing his range of facial expressions
considerably. He sometimes plays
characters that inflict unspeakable physical damage on their enemies, yet betray
nothing in the way of an emotional response to the carnage, be it disgust or gratification. His latest gangster opus, Outrage, seems to continue this curious
tradition.
