Director and screenwriter Takeshi Kitano charts the strange career arc of a struggling artist in this offbeat comedy-drama. Machisu Kuramochi (Reo Yoshioka) is the son of a successful businessman (Akira Nakao) with a passion for art, and at an early age Machisu decides he wants to make painting his career. When his father commits suicide after the collapse of his business, Machisu's stepmother (Mariko Tsutsui) sends him to live with an aunt and uncle who encourage him to hone his talent. As a teenager, Machisu (now played by Yurei Yanagi) attends art school and finds his traditional style of painting challenged by the more experimental and conceptual work turned in by his classmates. However, Machisu strikes up a friendship with a fellow student, Sachiko (Kumiko Aso), who encourages him to follow his own muse and paint what he loves. Machisu and Sachiko become lifelong friends, and as they enter heir fifties, both are still painting in the style that they established in their youth. However, while Sachiko (played as an adult by Kanako Higuchi) has found an original voice in his work, it's become increasingly obvious with the passage of time that Machisu (Beat Takeshi) has borrowed all he knows from the artists he loves without bringing much of his own personality to the picture. Akires to kame (aka Achilles and the Tortoise) received its North American premiere at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Kitano plays Machisu, who born into a wealthy family, but having lost both his parents as a child. When his father commits suicide after the collapse of his business, Machisu's stepmother (Mariko Tsutsui) sends him to live with an aunt and uncle who mistreat him and finally send him to an orphanage. As a teenager, Machisu attends art school and finds his style of painting challenged by the more experimental and conceptual work turned in by his classmates. However, Machisu strikes up a friendship with a fellow student, Sachiko (Kumiko Aso), who is an "understanding partner". Machisu and Sachiko get married and have a daughter. As he grows older, Mashisu's obsession with meeting contemporary art's standards grows steadily stronger and overpowering until it swallows his whole life, leaving him insensitive of everything and anything happening around him, including the death of his own daughter and his wife's leaving him. As people around him die or leave, Machisu try his hardest to catch up with what art experts want, remaining penniless and becoming increasingly pathetic. He hits rock bottom when he is caught up in a fire which he is trying to paint, and almost dies. Having gone through the devastating element of fire, and having burnt all his previous works, he is left with a single half-burnt soda can, which he assesses at 200,000 yen and tries to sell, and which ends up kicked carelessly away when his wife picks him up from the street and they walk away together, seemingly finally rid of the endless chase with art.
