Takeshis' review

Self-reference plummets into self-indulgence in this 2005 film from Takeshi Kitano (Sonatine, Zatôichi).

The writer/ director takes two roles, one a big-shot star, Beat Takeshi, and the other a store cashier, Mr Kitano, who fruitlessly auditions for acting gigs.

Practising for a role, the latter one day brings home a bag of guns, which turn out to be real. Or are they?

Kitano layers fantasy and reality via a surreal, doppelganger-themed satire of his two-pronged career as populist entertainer and arthouse hero.

All well and good, but there’s nothing searching here: instead, the bullet-ballet violence adds up to diminishing returns and a sense of repetition sets in all-too fast.