Cannes Sneak Peeks: Takeshi Kitano’s ‘Outrage’ & Nikita Mikhalkov’s ‘Burnt By The Sun 2’

While we won’t have the opportunity to attend the Cannes Film Festival this year, we’re in the same boat as our readers in taking whatever glimpses of the films we can get until they (hopefully) get a release of some kind on this side of the ocean. Lucky for us, trailers and footage for a new of the films have already found their way online giving us an early look at two of the In Competition films. Sorry, no subtitles here, but they still give a good sense of the films.

First up is Takeshi Kitano’s “Outrage.” The film marks to return the gangster films of the actor/director’s early career such as “Sonatine,” “Boiling Point” and “Brother.” Kitano has long had a fan in Quentin Tarantino who ushered “Sonatine” into North America on his Rolling Thunder label at the now shuttered Miramax helping the director to gain some cult status on these shores. Here’s the synopsis for “Outrage”. Trailer is below:

The story begins with Sekiuchi (Kitamura Soichiro), boss of the Sannokai, a huge organised crime syndicate controlling the entire Kanto region, issuing a stern warning to his lieutenant Kato (Miura Tomokazu) and right-hand man Ikemoto (Kunimura Jun), head of the Ikemoto-gumi. Kato orders Ikemoto to bring the unassociated Murase-gumi gang in line, and he immediately passes the task on to his subordinate Otomo (Beat Takeshi), who runs his own crew. The tricky jobs that no-one wants to do always end up in Otomo’s lap…

Next up is Nikita Mikhalkov’s followup to his celebrated 1994 film “Burnt By The Sun.” That film picked up a slew of honors including Oscar for Best Foreign Film and Grand Jury Prize and the Ecumenical Jury Prize at Cannes. Not too shabby. The original film was set in 1930s Stalinist Russia and focused upon a single day in the life of war hero Sergeui Kotov. The film was a quiet examination of the tolls of a repressive regime on its citizens. No word yet on the storyline for the second film, but it appears to be a prequel. The rather lengthy trailer for “Burnt By The Sun 2” is below: