Takeshi Kitano is the Japanese Graham Norton, with knobs on. He is not only Japan’s most outrageous TV comedian, he is also a musician, actor, artist, newspaper columnist and novelist. How he finds time to be a renowned film-maker, too, is anyone’s guess.

Though his movies have a healthy following in Japan, Kitano is probably best known here as Sergeant Hara in Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, the film ending with his face frozen in time.

However, that’s all set to change with Zatoichi, his most commercial film yet. Based on a popular character from Japanese B-movies, Zatoichi (Kitano) is a bleached blond, blind swordsman, able to slice and dice better than a Magimix. That the film is also stunningly photographed, unexpectedly moving and has you stamping your feet in joy doesn’t damage its box-office potential either.

As an actor Kitano takes the credit as Beat Takeshi (a reference to his days as half of the vaudeville-style duo The Two Beats), but it is as a writer and director that Kitano has really made his name.

Violent Cop does no more than what is says on the tin, the director playing a detective as hard on his witnesses as his suspects. But how to describe Sonatine? A gangster flick that splits down the middle and winds up with hoods in Hawaiian shirts boogying on the beach. And if you have him pegged as a tough guy, look at the heartbreaking study of love and grief, Hana-bi, or the aesthetically formal Dolls. Kitano is Ren aissance man: artist, lover and fighter.

Hollywood has paid him minimal attention: Tarantino bought the rights to distribute Sonatine in the States, but it was the British producer Jeremy Thomas who brought Kitano to New York for Brother, an attempt to widen the film-maker’s audience.

Shooting in America brought union issues that meant he had to change his working methods, which may explain the movie’s disappointing lack of nuance. He is aware of the problem and has said that if Sonatine is a small neighbourhood restaurant, Brother is a popular fast food chain.

After a near-fatal drink-driving accident a decade ago, Kitano stopped boozing and, less obviously, playing golf. Typically, the decision was not made for ethical or health reasons: “I hate the notion that because I was able to live, I should do this or that,” he explains. “But time is very valuable to me and to make time to read, study, play the keyboards, the guitar — all the things I want to do — I had to cut back. I’m like a sponge, trying to get in as much information and experience as possible.”

Kitano’s films are never less than engaging and Zatoichi is no exception: only he could pair a bloody drama with tap-dancing and make it a celebration of all that’s good about life and the movies. It’s time to check him out.

Zatoichi is on general release