Dan Boeckner of Operators and Wolf Parade joins the pod today from Montreal to discuss Tha God Takeshi Kitano. Outside his homeland Kitano is best known for his prizewinning violent crime dramas, but in Japan “Beat” Takeshi is a superstar TV comedian whose serious arthouse film career was not taken seriously there for several years.

Dan and I discuss two of Kitano’s films that exemplify his singular comic sensibility: the deadpan Boiling Point (1990) and the galaxy-brained sex comedy Getting Any? (1994), two films about the plight of the young, frustrated Japanese male oaf, and the culture that made him this way.

Plus: a celebration of Takeshi Kitano the god of video game design with a look at his hilarious and impossible-to-play eighties game Takeshi’s Challenge (marketed to children!), and some thoughts about the new Adam Curtis documentary series Can’t Get You Out Of My Head.

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Dan just launched a new Canadian politics podcast with Riley Quinn: The Bottlemen.

The incredible karaoke scene from Boiling Point (Kitano, 1990)

Trailer for Getting Any? (Kitano, 1994)