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Simply Perfect

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Great Film overall

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This is one of the weirdest movie from Takashi Miike, strong, obscure and sometimes hilarious.My advice, don't expect anything... watch it and then take whatever conclusions appraise you best.This is one of those common places where your expectation could be overwhelm, in a good or in a bad way. What you'll see will change the way you look at this director.The gangster scene, a constant in Takashi Miike portfolio, will be approach in a very exclusive and critic way where all his styles combine to bring the watcher with a scent of weirdness that won't let you take the eyes of the screen.A must see for every fan (style or director) but a "leave it on the shelf" for everybody else.

There are a number of weird blog writers I'm following, that are a lot more funny, can be even weirder, and many stories there (written in less than a day) have a better plot. A movie could, of course, add a lot of visual candy to go along with all that, but this movie sadly, does not. Most of the visuals were so poor that I could just amuse myself at the failed attempt. I understand not all movies have the budget, but in my opinion this genre needs it. I'm starting to believe that people reviewing movies are so bored of mainstream that they would just rate anything else. I've seen a lot of Asian movies and there are some masterpieces but that will never make me say that Asian movies are good, every movie needs to hold it's own.This is my first review, but I was so disappointed after finally realizing this is not at all a good movie but only slightly enjoyable at times. It might still be worth to watch to fans of the genre but if you're not into weird and dreamy atmosphere you should avoid this one.

This weird experimental Japanese movie is not only a homage to the gangster movies of the last three decades but also a tribute to the surreal cinema. The movie has many original characters, scenes and quotes to become a unique cult movie.The story itself explains already quite well the experimental style of the movie and its weird uniqueness. A young Yakuza is torn in between his crazy friend and partner who once saved his life and who now wants to rebel against the inner structures of the Yakuza on one side and the boss of his gang that wants him to kill his old partner gone crazy on the other side. When the young Yakuza is on his way with his partner to finally kill him in an isolated place, his betrayed partner suddenly disappears without a trace when the young and naive Yakuza leaves him alone for a few moments to order some lunch in a strange restaurant. He has to go on a strange journey to find his friend - either to ultimately kill him and satisfy his severe and pervert boss or to ally with him and try to break free. On his way, he meets weird transvestites in a restaurant, a pervert female hotel manager, a weird man with a scarface that seems to know more than he pretends, a strange young woman that pretends to be the reincarnation of the disappeared Yakuza partner and a mysterious cow demon that seems to reign over the suburbs of a city where the madness reigns.The film impresses with strange, unreal and yet unique and touching characters, a couple of truly bizarre events and an unexpected conclusion that you won't soon forget and that may rather develop further questions instead of answering the essential ones. I watched many scenes of the movie several times and tried to understand and analyze and developed my own theory. The great thing is that many plausible solutions can be found as I read on the internet which is a fact that distinguishes this Japanese masterpiece from many other movies of this kind that don't want the viewers to understand, offer unnecessary side stories and try to distract the viewers from reality to mix them up and make the movie an unreachable diva. This movie here is strange but addicting, attracting and relatively easy to follow. It unites detailed complexity and relative simplicity in a perfect way. It has also rather fast development for an Asian movie of that kind and gets you quickly into the complex story.I think that the movie is more interesting for fans of surreal and twisted film experiments but it's one of the more accessible or commercial movies of this kind and could be a great introduction to someone that would like to get a good idea of that genre. In fact, I would recommend this movie to anybody that likes epic and surprising road movies. Anybody that expects another entertaining gangster movie from Takashi Miike may be surprised by this unusual style and should check a trailer out before purchasing this movie. There is not a lot of action and tension in the movie but a lot of dark humour, mystery, mild horror as well as sex and violence as the film progresses.

Gokudô kyôfu dai-gekijô: Gozu (2003)Gozu (2003) is very entertaining while being utterly absurd. At times it is also quite funny in a twisted sort of way. It must be said that Gozu succeeds as a movie mainly because of the superb leading performance by the charismatic and talented Hideki Sone. Miike Takashi often proves, with his more adult orientated films, that his greatest talent is in his direction of actors. In Gozu, although the characters may appear unreal, none of the cast give the impression of "performance". Gozu shows us some of Miike Takashi obsessions, such as bodily fluids, sexual perversion and a deep seated fear of woman. The treatment of woman in his movies is the most telling aspect of Takashi's work. His most cruel treatment is usually reserved for the woman. They often resemble objects to be abused or feared. There are two obvious example of this in Gozu. The fear and revulsion shown by the lead character when his bath is interrupted by the creepy hotel owner, who offers to wash and then feed him her mother's milk. Another is with the female incarnation of "brother" in bed and the lead character's fear and apprehension at pealing back the bed clothes to see her sex.Takashi is clearly more comfortable in a male dominated world. His female visions are often ugly monsters, sadistic perverts or vacuous innocents. It would be interesting for Takashi to emulate one of his favourite directors, Sergio Leone and write a female character with depth and intelligence, as Leone did with Jill McBain from C'era una volta il West/Once Upon A Time In The West (1968). The creation of the character of Jill McBain was an admission by Leone that his female characters up until that point had been shallow and one-dimensional. One of Takashi's best films, Ôdishon/Audition (1999) does have a prominent female character but again she is something to be feared and objectified. Gokudô kyôfu dai-gekijô: Gozu is a unique film that clearly shows Miike Takashi's command of the medium of film.As a final note: Was the ending in anyway inspired by the cheap British alien horror movie Xtro (1983)?