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Summary: Wow. . . .
Review: Truly a genius . . . Very funny movie, what more can i say?!?
Rating: 
Summary: Disgusting, disturbing and revolting family...
Review: Visitor Q displays a fountain of extremely bizarre and disturbing human behaviors that can be thought of as an outcome of severe mental illness and deficiency in societal responsibility. This is done through a psychotic dysfunctional family amidst an emotionally repressed society where youth are taught moral values through media produced by adults lacking those same moral values. The film displays numerous revolting scenes that should alarm and disgust the audience, since most are beyond what is considered abnormal. The message is easily missed under the traumatizing scenes, but it rides underneath the horror of the characters daily lives. Thus, I must recommend everyone who is sensitive not to see this film, but I know that human curiosity cannot stop those who are curious. However, know that you have been warned.
Rating:
Summary: ....Insane.........
Review: Visitor Q is sick, but buy far one of the coolest movies i've ever seen to warn you though its a bit confusion but if you liked 'Audition' i think you'll like this. everyone i know did
Rating:
Summary: The horrors of family dysfunction
Review: When the outside world fails us, whether it's dealing with a crap job day after day or a love life that goes nowhere or rejection in various forms we often turn to our family. For many of us the family is a safety nest, a sanctuary of saneness where we can escape the pressures of every day life. That's why films dealing with the disintegration of the family unit have been so shocking and unfathomable to me. What happens when even our family nest is destroyed and all that we thought was dear is shattered to pieces? I have seen some pretty disturbing cinematic examples in the past, most notably "Cutting Moments" and "Combat Shock" that had me asking the question what if, could this ever happen to me and my family? Takashi Miike takes the concept of family dysfunction to new extremes with Visitor Q.Visitor Q examines a Japanese family with more problems than you could shake a stick at. The movie opens up with a young prostitute and a middle-aged man engaging in intercourse in front of a home-video camera. Throughout the act, the man keeps expressing remorse and doubt about what he is doing. Remorse for what, cheating on his wife? Nope, turns out the prostitute is actually his daughter. After this disturbing act that lasts not long, the lady taunts her own father with cries of "early bird!" and charges him 100 000Yen for the act, way more then he can afford. No problem, the girl says just give the rest of the sum to mom once you have it. Incest is the first of many atrocious acts committed by this family. Throughout the course of the movie the viewer is submitted to various scenes of necrophilia and domestic violence. Most bizarre is the young teenaged boy who continuously whips and beats up his mom, a crack addict and herself a prostitute. Mom doesn't seem to mind too much though and even encourages the boy to beat her up even harder as long as it's not on her face. Visitor Q has a cheap Snuff-film kind of look to it and I wouldn't be surprised if Miike had filmed this with an 8mm camera, it certainly looks that way. If Miike's sole intent with Visitor Q was to shock the viewer with as many outlandish images as possible than this can be considered a success. However, I found this film to be quite lacking on an emotional level. The family and their disturbing actions are presented in such a hollow way that the viewer doesn't even feel any sympathy towards them. The family members themselves seem to be quite satisfied with their current lifestyles. There is only one exception in the form of a scene where the young woman who works as a prostitute sits on her bed in her room and holds a stuffed animal in her hands. There is a glimmer in her eyes that suggests that better days used to exist for her. It would have been nice to see fragments of the family's past so that we could answer the following questions: Has this family always been this screwed up? If not then what led them to become this way? What is the purpose of them holding a video camera and wanting to tape all of their atrocities? Miike never bothers offering any answers. Visitor Q works well as long as it's taken strictly for what it is intended to be: a piece of exploitation filmmaking. It doesn't challenge on any emotional level the way Audition does, it's just a forum to throw as many shocking scenes in the viewer's way. Or is it perhaps meant as a social commentary on the ever-increasing absurdities of reality TV? Or a portrait of the changing dynamics of a Japanese society that has over the last couple of decades increasingly become attuned to the ways of the American models of entertainment and capitalism? It's open to our own interpretation but one thing's for sure, Miike never fails to shock or to challenge.
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Summary: Pure unadulterated genius
Review: While the argument that this film's only aim is to achieve controversy is pursuasive, it is by no means conclusive. Yes, it has necrophilia, incest, prostitution and intense violence, but to talk only about these things reduces the film to a petty little gratuitous teenage-angst rant. Or, as one reviewer has claimed, this is shock value without purpose, place, or reason is somewhat naive. The film is a work of genius. No question about it. Takashi Miike displays the carnivalesque workings of the body to the full. Where others have chosen to shy away, Miike explores every crevice of the grotesque, literally dissecting it to its corporeal elements to discover just exactly where are heads are at. The dead body is central to the film. Typical outdated stereotypes of the human mind, and indeed of Japan, are discarded along with the decaying flesh. Namely, preoccupations with politeness, taste, manners, and rational, institutional values are laughed at and abused. These things, along with sexual life, eating, drinking, and defecation have radically changed their meaning. The film is made in a time where Japan and its people are questioning and trying to define themselves. The warm closed insular security of the Japanese economic womb has been violently ruptured. Jobs and moral values are no longer stable in modern Japan. Just exactly does it mean to be Japanese? A number of western influences confuse the cultural collage that is Japan in a time where not many things are stable. Boundaries that did exist are no longer there. Being polite, reserved and rational with a nice institution to support you is no longer Japan. And this is where Miike comes in. Miike explores boundaries and then seeks to subvert them. Sexual boundaries do not exist. One is free to have sex with one's daughter or drink the breast-milk from your wife because there is no where to stop when there are no borders. By pushing the boundaries and bringing them to the fore, Miike questions what exactly makes us tick. Where are we when there is no one to define us? We may have the trappings of civilized beings, but we are after all bestial. The home video camera work gives the film a haunting sense of reality and naturalness to what was previously considered to be unnatural. The dark sense of humour permeating through this real texture transcends this film from generic classification. It is a grotesque carnivalesque romp mocking the polite film establishment, reality TV and society and repressive stereo types. It questions why we find such interest in watching these things, and most disturbingly, what should we feel when we watch them.
Rating: 
Summary: bizarre metaphor for family life
Review: wow. this movie really got to me. the first scene in the film establishes the depths of immoral and distastefulness that follows. opening with an intense scene where a man makes love to a young prostitute, then finding out who the prostitute is really strikes a nerve in you. the plot follows with almost no sense and no taste but presented with great acting and great direction. it's basically revolves around a family that each member has their own sick and twisted problems. normally in any other hollywood/american film you'd encounter only one of these problems [or some problems not at all] but all wrapped up together brings it together to produce a very interesting family. a visitor [i'm assuming 'visitor q'] enters into the situation. although i felt his actions weren't as impactful and uplifting as it should've been he still brought the whole family together in a well... less than wholesome way. with his violent and bizarre and intimate solutions, he teaches the lesson that "families should stick together under any circumstance". and trust me, some circumstances are incredibly messed up. this movie is one of those movies where you'll find yourself saying after many scenes "wow, i didn't think i'd ever see something like that in a movie" but then you'll be found laughing over it. it is disturbing, but really if you're like me and you watch a lot of these over-the-top movies it'll still shock you but not in a 'irreversible-rape-scene' kind of way. great flick, way more enjoyable and stimulating than 'happiness of the kitakuris'. takashi miike is awesome.
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