Kikujiro

Kikujiro
Japanese poster
Directed by	Takeshi Kitano
Written by	Takeshi Kitano
Produced by	Shinji Komiya Masayuki Mori Takio Yoshida
Starring	Takeshi Kitano Yusuke Sekiguchi
Cinematography	Katsumi Yanagishima
Edited by	Takeshi Kitano Yoshinori Ota
Music by	Joe Hisaishi
Production companies	Bandai Visual Tokyo FM
Distributed by	Japan: Nippon Herald Films Office Kitano United States: Sony Pictures Classics
Release dates	5 June 1999 (1999-06-05) (Japan) September 14, 1999 (1999-09-14) (TIFF)
Running time	121 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese
Box office	$200,920 (United States)[1]

Kikujiro (Kikujirō no Natsu (菊次郎の夏, literally "Kikujirō's Summer")) is a 1999 Japanese road drama film written, directed and co-edited by Takeshi Kitano, who also stars in the film with Yusuke Sekiguchi. Its score was composed by Joe Hisaishi. The film was entered into the 1999 Cannes Film Festival.^[2]

Kikujiro tells the story of a young boy searching for his mother during his summer vacation. The film is mostly divided into smaller chapters, listed as entries in the boy's summer vacation diary. Kitano's inspiration for the character (not the film) was his own father, Kikujiro Kitano, a gambler who struggled to feed his family and pay the rent.^[3]

Similar to his earlier works Getting Any? and A Scene at the Sea, Kitano references the yakuza only tangentially in Kikujiro, a departure from his work in crime dramas such as Sonatine and Hana-bi. Aimed at the whole family, the film was allegedly inspired by The Wizard of Oz with the basic premise being a road trip. Kitano's familiar elements and locales are present: drawings, vignettes, the seaside, and angels. Although the plot is composed largely of sad events, the film often has a light-hearted atmosphere, achieved mostly through Kitano's character and his somewhat bizarre encounters.