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Stars: Takeshi Kitano, Tadanobu Asano, Nao Ômor | Written and Directed by Takeshi Kitano

To western audiences, Takeshi Kitano is most likely known for one of two things; his mesmerising presence in Battle Royale, or for hosting the game show Takeshi’s Castle. There is also the chance that some may know him for his supporting role in 2017’s unremarkable Ghost in the Shell… In his native Japan, he is better known as a comedian and TV host, along with being a well-regarded director who was once dubbed as “the true successor” to the legendary Akira Kurosawa.

For his latest film, Broken Rage, Kitano blends together many of these elements for a truly fascinating work. He stars as Mouse, an assassin whose regular routine involves receiving an envelope at his local café. They contain instructions from a mysterious boss for Mouse’s next target, who he executes before moving along in plain sight.

One of the most unique action movies, probably ever, is now available to stream on Prime Video. Helmed by and starring legendary Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Kitano (you’ll no doubt recognize him from his role in 2000’s Battle Royale and for hosting the hit gameshow Takeshi's Castle), Broken Rage was released last year, and follows Kitano as an aging hitman who is offered one last job in exchange for his freedom from a life of violence. While this may not sound all that different from the myriad of other action thrillers, Broken Rage comes with a twist. And what a twist it is.

Directed, written, and led by Takeshi Kitano, Broken Rage tells the same story twice. First, as a brutal and bloody action thriller...and then again as a comedic parody. See, it really is quite the twisted approach to the age-old story of an aged action hero. Broken Rage stars Tadanobu Asano,...

The first thing you probably need to do after watching Broken Rage is rush to the internet and explore the legacy of director Takeshi Kitano. Since I wasn’t all that well-versed with Kitano’s work, I dug a little and found out the man used to be a huge deal as a comedian in Japan, and then he went on to make a slew of hardboiled crime movies, all centering on the Yakuza. That does explain Broken Rage, by the way, if you think about it—it is both a Yakuza movie and a deadpan comedy. Of course, what separates this from anything else is the director refusing to follow the typical movie formula of telling the story, act by act. Instead, he has told the same story twice here—both as a comedy and a drama. In fact, the second part is like a spoof of the first.

“Broken Rage” (2025), an action comedy movie by Takeshi Kitano, Aka Beat Takashi, is an exercise in style. It follows the story of an aging contract killer who is offered an ultimatum in exchange for his freedom. The first half of this hour-long film is told in the form of a thriller, while the second half repeats that same story but retells it in the form of an absurdist comedy.

Broken Rage (2025) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis: Broken Rage

The first half of “Broken Rage” (2025) shares the same eponymous title. It follows an aging hitman named Mouse, who enters a cafe, greets the maitre’d, and sits down to have coffee while going through the envelope delivered for him by the mysterious, Mr. M. He takes the envelope to his apartment, walks up the stairs, and then opens the envelope to find the photo of his first target and the location where he would be located.

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

The Adamant Girl (P. S. Vinothraj)

While rural stories have become a topic du jour across the many industries within Indian cinema, P.S. Vinothraj has carved a unique place for himself with Koozhangal (Pebbles) and his follow-up Kottukkaali (The Adamant Girl). He structurally breaks down family and community dynamics in rural areas with disquieting observation, his camera constantly tracking and intersecting movements of events. There are explosions of dialogue and emotion wrapped around long sequences of contemplation where just a glance can prove revelatory. Both Soori and Anna Ben, two well-established performers in Tamil cinema, are perfect ciphers for gender dynamics at play. Vinothraj refreshingly eludes sermons or obvious pleas, and The Adamant Girl respects its audience enough to let them unpack...

Japanese icon Takeshi Kitano offered a surprisingly candid admission about his Venice Film Festival appearance for “Broken Rage” last year: he barely remembers it, having suffered a concussion en route to the premiere after hitting his head on a motorboat.

“I actually had to go to the doctor, and they looked into my brain waves,” Kitano revealed at a Tokyo press event for the Amazon Original film. “It’s a little bit embarrassing to say that actually. For those people who were involved, they all asked me how Venice was. And I don’t actually really have anything.”

“It’s not painful, but I think when they looked into my brainwaves, it has shown that they did actually have a shock, but it’s already recovered since then, I’ve been told. But I think I might be funnier if it hadn’t been recovered actually, but I think I...

Prime Video has announced the lineup of movies and TV shows that will be available on the service in February. The Prime Video February 2025 lineup includes new Amazon original movies, TV shows, and specials.

Members can look forward to 50,000 First Dates: A True Story, Broken Rage, Clean Slate, Contigo en el futuro, Dino Dex Part 2, George Lopez: Muy Católico, House of David, Invincible Season 3, My Fault: London, Reacher Season 3 and Su Majestad.

Prime Video Originals

The Prime Video February 2025 programming includes the following Originals.

Clean Slate (2025 – Streaming February 6)

This heartfelt Norman Lear comedy follows Harry (George Wallace), an old-school car wash owner in Alabama who has a lot of soul-searching to do when the child he thought was a son returns as a proud, trans woman, Desiree (Laverne Cox).

Her homecoming brings together a hilarious cast of friends, coworkers, and love interests, as Desiree and Harry try to get it right the second time around.

Prime Video has named Keisuke Oishi as country manager for Japan as the streamer “prepares for its next phase of growth in the region”.

Oishi will take up the role today (January 20), moving from his position as director and general manager of Amazon Music Japan. The executive joined Amazon in 2014 after 17 years at Sony Corp, where he rose to senior manager of strategy in the PC business unit. He reports to Gaurav Gandhi, vice president of Prime Video Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa.

Oishi replaces Takashi Kodama, a former Disney Japan executive, who stepped down from Amazon in November...

Prime Video has named Keisuke Oishi as its new country manager for Japan, effective Jan. 20. The veteran Amazon executive, who most recently served as director and general manager of Amazon Music Japan, will report to Gaurav Gandhi, VP of Prime Video Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. He replaces Kodama Takashi.

Oishi brings a decade of Amazon experience to the role, having joined the company in 2014 after a stint at Sony Corporation. The Hitotsubashi University alum has climbed the ranks at Amazon Japan, holding key positions including head of the software and video game division and director of the entertainment media division, where he oversaw the company’s packaged media business across multiple entertainment verticals.

The appointment comes as the streaming giant continues to gain momentum in the Japanese market, where it has established itself as a go-to destination for local content. Beyond its core SVOD offering, Prime Video Japan...

"If you work with us, we'll let you off the hook." Prime Video in Japan has revealed a trailer for Broken Rage, a unique Takeshi Kitano film ready for release on streaming in the next few months. This initially premiered at the 2024 Venice Film Festival as a special selection following his 3-hour long film Kubi the year before. Broken Rage follows a hitman, Nezumi (played by Beat Talkeshi), fighting for his survival when he’s caught between the police and yakuza. But in the second half, the gritty crime-action thriller takes an unexpected turn, evolving into a self-parodying comedy that retells the same story with a very humorous touch. A two-part film. This first half is a gritty action film in a dark criminal underworld revolving around a hitman and his struggle for survival. Aside from Takeshi Kitano, this also stars Tadanobu Asano and Nao Ômori. I watched this in...

Prime Video has announced that the Japanese Original film Broken Rage will launch on February 13, exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.

Directed, written by, and starring the legendary filmmaker Takeshi Kitano, who continues to receive worldwide acclaim, Broken Rage is based on his concept of exploring “comedy within a violent film.”

This hour-long film is divided into two parts. The first half depicts a hard-boiled crime action where a hitman, caught between the police and the yakuza, struggles to survive. The second half ingeniously retells the same story using self-parody techniques, presenting it in a comedic style.

This work, which director Kitano himself described as an experimental endeavor, was selected for the Out of Competition section at the Venice International Film Festival 2024. It marks the first Japanese film produced for streaming to be officially selected for the prestigious international film festival.

Tadanobu Asano, who starred...

While we still await a U.S. release for Takeshi Kitano’s samurai epic Kubi, his latest film is getting a worldwide release next month. Broken Rage, which premiered at Venice Film Festival last fall, was picked up by Prime Video for a global release, which will now take place on February 13. Ahead of the debut, the new trailer has now arrived.

Here’s the synopsis: “Broken Rage follows a hitman, Nezumi (played by Takeshi Kitano), fighting for his survival when he’s caught between the police and yakuza. But in the second half, the gritty crime-action thriller takes an unexpected turn, evolving into a self-parodying comedy that retells the same story with a captivatingly humorous touch.”

Leonardo Goi said in his Venice review, “Enter Broken Rage. Split into two chapters, the film kicks off as a crime thriller before switching tones altogether and revisiting the first part scene-by-scene in a more delirious light.

Takeshi Kitano’s new film, Broken Rage, will be available on Prime Video on February 13 worldwide. This streaming-only film is the first Japanese movie officially chosen for the Venice Film Festival. It will be shown outside the game at a major event in 2024.

Kitano, a well-known Japanese film director, stars in and directs the movie. Kitano is known for his creative storytelling, and in Broken Rage, he takes a bold approach by mixing two different styles in the story. The first half is a gritty crime thriller about a hitman in a deadly conflict between the cops and the yakuza. The second half reimagines the same story through a comedic lens, using self-parody to shift the film’s tone.

Kitano described his project as an experiment to see if there can be comedy in a violent film.

Tadanobu Asano, who won the Golden Globe for Best Actor, stars in the film.

Legendary Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Kitano had long-balanced comedy and drama in his multifaceted career. Known first as a funnyman television host, he nonetheless directed gripping crime thrillers that found humor even in violence. With Broken Rage, the acclaimed auteur takes his blend of genres to delightful new extremes.

The 2024 film premiered Out of Competition at Venice, telling one story twice. Its first half follows a hitman named Mouse in typical gritty Kitano style. But then, the tone takes an uproarious turn as that same plot replays as over-the-top slapstick. At 77 years old, Kitano proves as spry as ever, gleefully tumbling himself through each familiar scene now warped beyond recognition.

Playing a killer for hire who cracks under police pressure, Kitano finds the comedy in upending our expectations. His script plays with a familiar genre yet retains just enough logic to anchor the absurd flights of fancy. Changing nothing but the tone,...

While there’s a few more fall film festivals popping up in the next month, the major ones are behind us, which means we have a strong sense of the films to have on your radar in the coming months and even through 2025. We’ve asked our writers from across the globe to weigh in on their favorite world premieres from Locarno Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, and BFI London Film Festival.

Our coverage will continue with a few more reviews this week, and far beyond as we provide updates on the journey of these selections, so continue to explore all of our festival coverage here. In the meantime, check out top picks from our writers below and return soon for our extensive year-end coverage.

Soham Gadre (@SohamGadre)

1. April (Dea Kulumbegashvili)

2 and 3. Youth (Homecoming and Hard Times) (Wang Bing...

Tadanobu Asano is set to receive The Hollywood Reporter’s Trailblazer Award at the upcoming 37th installment of the Tokyo International Film Festival next month.

The chameleonic screen actor has been a mainstay of Japanese cinema for nearly three decades while regularly appearing in prominent supporting parts in big Hollywood productions. But his swaggering recent performance as the irascible samurai Yabushige on FX‘s smash-hit series Shogun has given him an all-new level of global recognition over the past year. In the process of becoming an indelible fan favorite, Asano also received his first Emmy nomination for the part.

THR’s Trailblazer Award, whose recent honorees include six-time Emmy winner Jean Smart, David Oyelowo, Eva Longoria, Matt Bomer, Niecy Nash-Betts and America Ferrera, is given to artists whose work and careers illuminate stories and characters who have been traditionally marginalized in Hollywood. International editor Abid Rahman will present Asano with the award on Oct.

From Italy to Canada and Colorado, the fall festivals unleashed a firehose of new films on the international landscape — the majority of which, as is ever thus, are still looking for buyers.

The Venice, Toronto, and Telluride film festivals all hosted plenty of splashy world premieres that attracted early or quick-to-respond buyers, like A24 with “Queer,” “The Brutalist,” and “Friendship,” TIFF opener “Nutcrackers” (Hulu), “Maria” (Netflix), and “September 5” (Paramount). But there are smaller films — and even some bigger, starrier ones from Naomi Watts in “The Friend” to Jude Law and Ana de Armas in “Eden” — still on the hook for stateside distribution.

While there are still plenty of industry-friendly festivals ahead to help locate buyers, like NYFF and AFI Fest, IndieWire rounds up the best films we saw at the fall fests so far that deserve distribution. Somebody, do something about these 22 titles!

Anne Thompson contributed to this story.

“April...

Takeshi Kitano is back with a yakuza film, an announcement that is sure to send shivers of excitement among the many fans of the Japanese director across the world. Yet the 62-minute feature turns out, after a seemingly straightforward beginning, to be a farcical parody of gangster films. This allows Kitano, who wrote, directed and edited “Broken Rage“, to give free reins to his zany comical leanings.

“Broken Rage” is screening at Venice International Film Festival

Kitano plays Mr. Mouse, a phlegmatic assassin for hire who is seen coolly dispatching various victims. One day he is arrested by the police, who force him to work for them and infiltrate a Tokyo drugs gang. This rather conventional story soon ends, however, as the plot resets and starts over from the beginning, retelling the same events, sometimes scene-for-scene, but in comical, delirious form.

Describing “Broken Rage” as a send-up of Kitano’s...

As if the very title didn’t give away the game, “Broken Rage” never lives up to its central conceit. Nor does it try to, not that the director particularly cares, and neither should any of us, because the film that Takeshi Kitano actually delivered is all the more delightful. Promising a kind of diptych that starts as a gritty Yakuza flick before doubling back to redo the same scenes for farce, the film plays as a more elemental game of set-up and payoff, giving viewers — and itself — the most loving possible raspberry and the least-toxic troll. That Kitano does all that in just an hour’s length endears even more. We should be so lucky to have broken promises this sturdy.

To be fair, the bait and switch is obvious from the jump. While the film’s first half is supposed to shoot straight as a hit-man thriller, the...

Broken Rage has put me in a difficult position. On the one hand, I want you to have the same experience with it that I did, and I went in completely blind. On the other, I don't quite have the courage to pull a Jack Torrance and fill several more paragraphs with the same sentence repeated ad nauseam. So, I'll say now that you should see Broken Rage, preferably with people. If you're not sold yet, read on, but know there's no shame in stopping as soon as you are. You can always bookmark this and come back later!

All I knew ahead of seeing this film was that it was the latest work from Japanese filmmaker and star Takeshi Kitano, and that it ran just over an hour. There wasn't much else to know at the time when it was announced in the Venice lineup, it was described as a surprise,...

Fielding questions about Kubi, a period piece chronicling a few years of internecine feudal wars in 16th-century Japan, Takeshi Kitano dismissed some rumors he’d stoked. The film wasn’t going to be his last, as he’d previously suggested. In fact, he was already working on the next, a parody that would explore “the theme of comedy within violent movies.” I have no way of knowing when exactly the director will choose to put an end to a career that’s spanned four decades––the man is so prolific and allergic to stasis you’d expect him to keep working till the very last breath. But there’s something about his latest, Broken Rage, that makes it an apt summation of his cinema, and a farewell-of-sorts; hidden behind its farcical facades is the specter of a filmmaker revisiting his entire canon, leitmotifs, and style.

In the months between Kubi...

The 29th Busan International Film Festival has revealed the line-ups for its competitive New Currents and Jiseok sections, which include the latest features from award-winning filmmakers Brillante Mendoza, Rima Das and Tom Lin.

The Jiseok strand, launched in 2022, is reserved for Asian filmmakers who have directed at least three features and this year comprises eight titles.

Scroll down for full list of titles

They include Motherland by Filipino director Mendoza, which explores the bloody Mamasapano incident of 2015, when 44 police commandos and more than 20 others were killed in a deadly operation. The filmmaker has previously played in competition at Berlin, Cannes...

Before highlighting 40 films confirmed to be arriving in theaters this fall that you should have on your radar, we turn our attention to the festival-bound films either without distribution nor a confirmed fall release date. Looking over Venice, Toronto, the New York Film Festival, and other selections, we’ve rounded up 20 we can’t wait to see over the next few weeks.

Find our 20 most-anticipated festival premieres below and return for our reviews, as well as news if some of these hit theaters this fall.

2073 (Asif Kapadia; Venice)

Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Asif Kapadia returns with what appears to be his most ambitious feature yet. Billed as a documentary thriller set in a dystopia 50 years into the future, 2073 borrows inspiration from Chris Marker’s La Jetée, in which a time-traveler attempted to save humanity after an apocalyptic World War III. The Oscar-winning director, primarily known for capturing intimate portraits of sports...

The first details of Takeshi Kitano’s secretive project Broken Rage have been revealed ahead of its world premiere at the 81st Venice Film Festival.

It has emerged that the latest feature by the veteran Japanese actor and filmmaker is the project that Amazon MGM Studios announced it was producing in June. It means that Broken Rage is the first first Japanese film produced for streaming to be officially selected for Venice and will premiere at the festival on September 6. The feature will stream exclusively on Prime Video in 2025.

When first announced as part of the Venice line-up, no plot details or cast were revealed,...

Buckle in, film buffs, we’re not done with festival season yet. The 2024 Venice Film Festival lineup was announced on Tuesday, and rest assured there will be plenty of glamorous movie stars waving from boats. The lineup includes expected entries like Joker: Folie à Deux, starring Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix...