Actor, author, comedian and filmmaker Takeshi Kitano will helm the samurai film “Neck,” an adaptation of his own 2019 novel “Kubi,” which is expected to be his final directorial effort reports Variety.
Inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai,” the novel is a fictional re-telling of the real-life Honno-ji Incident in which warlord Oda Nobunaga was assassinated at a Kyoto temple in 1582.
Takeshi’s take unfolds before the assassination and will have Japanese actor Ken Watanabe in the lead role with production potentially beginning as early as May.
Takeshi played the iconic samurai character Zatoichi in “The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi” back in 2003.