“Zatoichi,” winner of the Silver Lion Award at the 60th Venice Film Festival and the People’s Choice Audience Award at the 28th Toronto International Film Festival, will be the opening film at the 6th Makati Cinemanila International Film Festival, which runs from July 1 to 12 at the Greenbelt Cinemas.

“Zatoichi” (2003), a revival of the cult series that hit Japan in the early 60s, is writer/director/actor Takeshi Kitano’s first venture into period drama. Aside from winning in Venice and Toronto, the film also garnered awards at the Marrakech International Film Festival and Sitges Catalonia International Film Festival.

One of the most popular heroes of Japanese 19th century drama, Zatoichi is a blind wanderer who gambles and works as a masseur for a living. Under his lowly pretense lies a master swordsman who defends the weak and the oppressed.

Aside from being an internationally acclaimed filmmaker, Kitano (who also goes by the names “Beat” Takeshi and just plain Takeshi) is also popular in his country as a comedian, game show host, baseball commentator, commercial model, and newspaper columnist, among others. He first started out as part of a stand-up comedic duo called “The Two Beats” (hence his nickname) before being discovered by a TV producer.

Since his 1989 directorial debut Kitano has written, directed, edited or starred in almost a film per year without losing the momentum of his originality and heightened artistic sensibility. As a filmmaker, he has a very unique visual style. His characters seem almost uncaringly passive about the extreme situations they are placed in; tranquility in his films alternate with sudden explosions of emotion and/or violence. In “Zatoichi,” Kitano uses CGI graphics for the blood and sword effects to detail the violence.

Makati Cinemanila paid tribute to Kitano in 2002 when it screened “Kikujiro” (1999) and “Hana-Bi” (1997), which won the Golden Lion in Venice, the Critics Award at the Sao Paulo International Film Festival, and the Five Continents Award at the European Film Awards. His previous film “Dolls” (2002) was screened at the film festival last year.

The Japan Foundation Manila Office will be co-sponsoring the opening night on July 1. Taking the cue from Makati Cinemanila, JFMO previously featured seven contemporary works by Kitano at the Eiga Sai film festival last September.