Though it must have been a mistake and will probably be rectified soon enough, DreamWorks and Paramount have actually cast a Japanese person in a prominent role for their adaptation of legendary anime/manga series Ghost In The Shell. Not only that, but the Japanese person happens to be the similarly legendary actor, director, author, comedian, and screenwriter Takeshi Kitano, better known as Beat Takeshi. This comes from Deadline, which reports that he’ll be playing Daisuke Aramaki, the head of covert special-ops force Section 9. That means his character is the boss of Scarlett Johansson’s badass female cyborg, who doesn’t appear to officially have a name yet (Deadline doesn’t give her one, at least). Michael Pitt will be playing the villain in the film, a character who will reportedly be based on the terrorist hacker called The Laughing Man from the Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex TV show.
Ghost In The Shell will be Kitano’s first role in a U.S. film since Johnny Mnemonic in 1995.