What do you see as the central story in ""?
It's a story about the Yakuza. The moral of the Yakuza is self-sacrifice and the beauty or the aesthetic of death. The life of the Yakuza is to live without anybody, so that they can die anytime. They have wives but not regular wives. They don't marry, because they know they could be killed at any time.
Do you believe in their code?
I don't want to be misunderstood. I'm not saying that their value is any good; I do not want to make them heroes, as in other Yakuza films. My Yakuza are not heroes. They're just stupid and very short-sighted.
Are the Yakuza fans of your work in general?
I know I have many fans among the Yakuza, not because of my films, but because of my way of living in the show business world. I'm an outsider, always fighting against the hierarchy. They like me, and they like my way of living. I know many of them saw "Hana-Bi" and enjoyed it.
Do you know many of them well?
Once I met the boss of the second biggest family in Japan. I was kidnapped one day, and I thought I would be killed. And they took me to a resort in the mountain, but it was the daughter of this boss who wanted to see me. She was a fan.
You're on TV every night in Japan, so what happened during the shoot for "Brother"?
I was away for two months, so I taped the programmes for the eight weeks while I was away. So I was on the TV, even then. Even now, while I've been away for three weeks, I have recorded 23 programmes for three weeks.
