“You idiot, you’re about to meet the governor!” In a surreal televised moment, one of Japan’s most celebrated film-makers – the winner of the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion in 1997 – emerged from a limousine dressed as Donald Trump, with a blond wig and red tie, on his way to visit the governor of Tokyo, a city of more than nine million people.
Takeshi Kitano, better known in Japan as the comedian “Beat Takeshi”, brushed off the scolding from his dark-suited sidekick waiting outside city hall and strode through the sliding glass doors to meet Yuriko Koike, Tokyo’s first female governor and Japan’s political star of the moment.
Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month
Content from our partners
