[KineJapan] Office Kitano dispute

Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum via KineJapan kinejapan at lists.osu.edu
Tue Apr 3 20:04:53 EDT 2018


As some of you may have heard, Kitano Takeshi has left the company, Office Kitano, that he created and that bears his name. The Office is not only in charge of managing his activities, it also manages the careers of the Takeshi Army and actors such as Terajima Susumu. In addition, it is the production office for his films, and invests in the production of other films. Finally, it manages the Tokyo FilmEx film festival. 

While his departure was announced about a month ago, the last few days have seen lots of reports on the wide shows and tabloids about what is going on behind the surface. The main source of information was a report uploaded on Suidobashi Hakase’s blog (he’s one of the members of Asakusa Kid, and a member of the Takeshi Army). It was apparently a statement that other Army members have signed off on. It basically asserts that the problem has been money. It says that Takeshi became upset when he learned that Mori Masayuki, the CEO of Office Kitano, has secretly become the top stock holder of the company, that company officers and staff are receiving extraordinary salaries while the talent are receiving very little, etc. The wideshow on Asahi this morning reports that Mori is receiving over $1,000,000 a year, that officers over $2-300,000, that staff working for over 10 years get $100,000, while Ide Rakkyo for instance, a long-standing Army member for 30 years, only gets $10,000 a year. All this came to a head when Office Kitano fell into the red in 2017 for the first time on income of about $24 million.

Takashi leaving his own company is a huge blow because 80% of the company’s earnings derive from him. What is curious is that most of the Army members have said they will stay at Office Kitano, despite their statement. Yet without Kitano, there are questions over whether the Office can continue to produce films or manage the Tokyo FilmEx film festival or even exist.

Aaron Gerow
Professor
Film and Media Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University
320 York Street, Room 311
PO Box 208324
New Haven, CT 06520-8324
USA
Phone: 1-203-432-7082
Fax: 1-203-432-6729
e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu <mailto:aaron.gerow at yale.edu>
website: www.aarongerow.com














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