The most memorable moments of Mai dire Banzai

Very recently, the news that Amazon Prime Video will produce a new edition of Takeshi's Castle, a sort of crazy Japanese Games without Borders created by Beat Takeshi and populated by crazy competitors, shameless exhibitionists and with a strong self-defeating spirit. Here the show is a true television institution thanks to the Mai dire Banzai format developed in the late 80s by Gialappa's Band, merging extracts from Takeshi's Castle with another show, The Gaman, recently brought to the fore by the similarities with the award-winning Korean Netflix series S quid Game. The first had been created three years earlier by Takeshi Kitano, at the time the stranoto comedian of Japanese television and in the future one of the best known, acclaimed and awarded Asian film directors in the West. For the occasion, we are reviving some of the most exemplary and memorable moments saved and preserved on social networks (we put the links on them, so you can relive them).

Mashiro Tamigi and the game of boulders Content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

click here if you don't see the video Mashiro Tamigi awaits the competitors who will have to slaughter each other in yet another potentially fatal game. Gialappa's explains that this is not an actor wearing a giant papier-mâché head, but that he is… his natural big head. In reality, that is Takeshi Kitano before he became known all over the world as the director of Sonatine and so on. For Japanese viewers, "Beat" Takeshi will always remain, half of a famous comedy duo on the small screen and the television icon who created that organized delusion that is Takeshi's Castle. Here we see him watching the game of fake and real stones (in Squid Game replaced by glass plates).

Gennaro Olivieri, Guido Pancaldi and the rope game Content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

click here if you don't see the video Obviously Takeshi Kitano and Saburo Ishikura are not the former hockey referee who, together with his colleague Guido Pancaldi, was a referee for Games without Borders from the 60s to the 80s, but for Gialappa's they are certainly the Japanese versions. At this juncture they introduce a test that is as simple as it is lethal: reaching a platform by launching with the rope. The result is almost always to fail and get terrible.

Cippa Lippa & Lippo Lippi, Squid Game & As the Gods Will Content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

click here if you don't see the video The Serie A draw, Cippa Lippa and Lippo Lippi - former classmates despite her twenty years and his 85 -, Mashiro Tamigi (actually the usual Kitano with the infamous "big head ”) Are among the institutions of Mai dire Banzai. Here they are struggling with a "very violent" version of One two three stars. A true ante litteram cross between Squid Game (here with Younghee instead of Cheol-soo)) and As the Gods Will (here the daruma doll is mentioned in the costumes) in which the contestants have to make beautiful figurines despite wearing bulky clothing that they roll away like marbles.

The cheerful fil rouge of Paguro Bernando Content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

click here if you don't see the video All games by Mai dire Banzai constituted, in a more or less serious way, an attempt on the lives of the competitors. In the case of this classic, which required the player to balance on a reel without falling until reaching the finish line, the risks of dying were actually low, at least in a short time. On the shorter ones, some unfortunate, incited by the implacable General Putzerstofen, will surely have contracted streptococcus like Katherine Hepburn after the dives in the San Barnaba canal in Venice due to the rigorously putrid waters that always awaited the victims in the Kitano games. br>
The minotaur of Chieti Content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

click here if you don't see the video Surrounded by the usual murky waters the competitors of this test had to leave a beehive maze. Nothing transcendental, considering the size of the aforementioned, but it should be emphasized that the Japanese never do anything calmly. For a workaholic company that in the 1980s harvested a hundred hours of work a week there was never time and even in this case we see them venturing out of breath. As if that were not enough, behind some doors, angry and murderous monks await them.

The surprise doors Content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

click here if you don't see the video Probably our favorite classic of Mai dire Banzai games is door rehearsals. A challenge that requires no special skills other than the blatant luck of getting into doors made of cardboard and not wooden ones. The competitors had to overtake four running like mad (obviously), and this time without risking to end up with their asses soaking in some dirty trickle. The challengers often presented themselves with characteristic clothing: some with the school uniform of a sailor, some with the traditional yukata, some with work clothes or with bizarre costumes; everyone had to throw themselves against the doors and hope not to crash into these or ... the guys in samurai armor.