Kikujiro (Japanese: Kikujirō no Natsu, "Kikujirō's Summer") is a 1999 Japanese comedy drama film directed by Takeshi Kitano, starring Kitano and Yusuke Sekiguchi. Joe Hisaishi composed the soundtrack.
Masao (Sekiguchi) is a boy who lives with his grandmother in Tokyo. He discovers a photograph and the address of his mother, who he does not know. Masao decides to visit his mother during his summer vacation. When he leaves home, he meets Kikujiro (Kitano) and his wife. Kikujiro's wife asks him to go with Masao.
Kikujiro provides examples of:
- All Bikers are Hells Angels: Averted. The two bikers are bullied by Kikujiro and they are really nice guys who do everything they can to cheer Masao up (including humiliating themselves).
- Badass and Child Duo: Kikujiro is a retired yakuza. He bullies every person he meets. He meets Masao, whose father died in an accident and whose mother lives far away, progressively gets closer to him and decides to help him to find his mother. Subverted because Kikujiro is not a One-Man Army: when four yakuza attack him, they knock him out.
- Blatant Lies: Kikujiro does this several times over the course of the film, almost always to protect Masao's feelings. After he and Masao find Masao's mother's home and discover she has a new family, he later claims to Masao that he went to the house and learned that the boy's mother moved away years ago, despite the fact that Masao saw his mother quite clearly. Similarly, after getting led away from a festival by yakuza and beat up, he claims to Masao that he simply took a bad fall.
- Butt-Monkey: The bikers. First Kikujiro bullies them and forces them to give him a blue bell shaped like an angel. When they meet Kikujiro and Masao again, they spend a couple of days together and they are constantly bullied and insulted by Kikujiro, who forces them to play humiliating roles in games they play with Masao.
- Cultural Rebel: A major theme of the movie. Anyone who "doesn't fit in" in the tightly-conformist Japanese society is usually kind and polite, while authority figures range from benign but stuffy (the hotel clerk who scolds Kikujiro and Masao for breaking the rules while having fun) to outright dangerous (the organizers of a local festival turn out to be yakuza, with all the games rigged).
- Cut Himself Shaving: After being beaten up by the yakuza, Kikujiro tells Masao that he fell down some stairs.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Kikujiro hints several times that his situation was/is not so different from Masao's; when he finds out that Masao has an absentee mother, he remarks to himself, "Just like me...", and, late in the film, he randomly decides to take a visit to a nearby nursing home where it turns out his mother is a patient (and is apparently a cold and unfriendly woman, walking away when another woman tries to sit down and chat with her) - when a nurse offers to bring her out to the common area for a visit, Kikujiro declines and leaves. This all hints to an interesting and troubled backstory to Kikujiro that would explain a lot about how he wound up where he is in life.
- Dirty Old Man: An elderly pedophile tries to molest Masao. Fortunately, Kikujiro arrives just in time to protect him and he beats the pedophile up.
- Dream Sequence: Kikujiro dreams that the bikers are drowning and he is swimming to save them. He moves in his sleep (as if he was swimming) and wakes up the guy sleeping next to him.
- The Gambling Addict: Kikujiro begins the film with enough money to pay for his and Masao's trip to Toyohashi, but his first stop is at a racetrack where he blows all of his cash gambling on the races. This winds up being the driving force of the plot, as it forces the two to beg, borrow, and steal their way across the country, rather than just hopping on a train.
- Given Name Reveal: Despite his name serving as the title of the movie, Kikujiro's name is only revealed in the movie's final spoken line, when Masao asks him his name (prior to that, Masao had referred to him as "Oji-chan" - literally "uncle", but used in Japanese to address a middle-aged man whose name isn't known to the speaker - and the other characters simply don't ever refer to him by name). This is a bit of a Bait-and-Switch, as the movie's original title is "Kikujiro no Natsu" (Kikujiro's Summer), which implies that the young boy is Kikujiro, rather than his companion.
- Hypocrite: Kikujiro criticizes a biker for stealing a watermelon, whereas he himself stole many things previously (including a taxi, for example). Moreover, he eats the watermelon.
- I Have a Family: When four yakuza are going to beat him up, Kikujiro mentions that he has got a child. The yakuza answer that hiding behind a child is pathetic and they beat him up.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Kikujiro is a bully who insults everybody, but over the course of the film he shows that he really cares for Masao.
- Lonely Together: An underlying theme of the film. The most obvious examples are Masao and Kikujiro, who share a background of a troubled family life and a general social awkwardness; however, it goes beyond them, as all of the companions and friends they make on their journey (the bikers, the artist, the street performer, etc.) are similarly misfits and outcasts trying to make their way in the world.
- Lying to Protect Your Feelings: Kikujiro tells Masao that his mother has moved and does not live any more at the address that Masao found, even if Kikujiro and Masao saw her and her new family.
- Morality Pet: Masao is one to Kikujiro. Once Kikujiro starts to accept his role as a Parental Substitute to Masao (seemingly out of sympathy, as it's implied Kikujiro also had a troubled relationship with his mother), he starts to reveal a more caring side and prove he's not just a layabout thug and a gambling addict.
- Naked People Are Funny: One of the bikers, Baldy, likes undressing himself. When the bikers camp with Masao, Kikujiro and the poet, Baldy gets undressed several times and it creates funny situations.
- Nightmare Sequence: When Masao is left alone on a bench, while the yakuza take Kikujiro, he dreams of two dancing demons.
- Onscreen Chapter Titles: The film is divided in chapters that look like entries in Masao's diary.
- Parental Abandonment: Masao's father died in an accident. His mother lives far away and he is raised by his grandmother.
- Parental Substitute: Kikujiro is a father figure for Masao whose father is dead. At some point, Kikujiro even suggests that he could marry Masao's mother and become Masao's father.
- Raised by Grandparents: Masao is a boy who is raised by his grandmother.
- Road Trip Plot: Masao and Kikujiro go from Tokyo to Toyohashi and back. On the way, they meet several people and they get closer to each other.
- Secret Other Family: Masao and Kikujiro discovers that Masao's mother has a husband and a daughter and lives with them in Toyohashi, whereas Masao's grandmother told she worked hard to support Masao.
- Took a Level in Kindness: In the beginning, Kikujiro is a jerkass who bullies everybody. When his wife asks him to go with Masao to look for Masao's mother, he does not care about the boy and his search. Instead, he takes Masao to track cycling races. Progressively, he gets closer to Masao and takes care of him. In the end, he suggests going on another journey with Masao.
- Tranquil Fury: When Kikujiro discovers that Masao's mother abandoned her son to run away with her new family, the normally boisterous and foul-mouthed gangster can only glare at her in a cold fury before shepherding Masao away.
- Vine Swing: This the last game that Masao, Kikijiro, the bikers and the poet play together. The bikers imitate the yell of Tarzan. The rope snaps off when Fatso tries it.
- Wham Shot: When Masao finally arrives at his mother's home, he sees her walk out the door... followed by her husband and daughter. Contrary to what Masao's grandmother claimed, his mother wasn't simply working to support him; she had straight-up abandoned him.
- Yakuza: At the funfair, Kikujiro is beaten up by a group of yakuza. Kikujiro himself is probably a retired yakuza, since he sports a large tattoo on his back like them.
