Rating: 
Summary: Totally mad, totally infectious
Review: A small group of my friends and I have something of a cult fascination with this film, Takeshi Kitano's absolutely deranged slapstick comedy about a man obsessed with having sex in a car. Kitano got his start in standup comedy, after all, and this movie is like a compilation of all those gags he never got to pull with the audiences who went to see his stony, blunt-nosed nihilist masterpieces like "Violent Cop."Asao (Japanese comedian Dankan) is a nerdy man with one goal in life: passionate sex in a car. But he's got no car, and no girl, so what's a guy to do? The movie catalogues his misadventures, ranging from joining the yakuza to becoming an actor, working in a gun factory, trying (and trying, and TRYING) to rob a bank, and eventually participating in a human-invisibility experiment that goes horribly wrong. There's no telling what happens in the next five minutes, and that's both the movie's charm and its shortcoming: it's as unpredictable as it is aimless. Many of Kitano's regulars (Korean actor Hakuryu, Dankan himself, and so on) are in the cast, along with tons of other familiar comedic faces from Japan. The whole thing's scored with a crazy-quilt of Japanese pop ballads that's addictive enough that you wonder why they never released a soundtrack to go with it. But is the movie funny? Oh, god yes. It's deranged, absolutely screwloose humor on the order of "Airplane," although some of the jokes may fly right over some people's heads. What do you say, for instance, to a scene where Asao talks in a kind of Japanese Pig Latin that involves inverting each pair of syllables in a word, and requires subtitles for the JAPANESE speakers in the audience? Or the ending sequence, where they make fun of every rubber-monster man-in-suit movie out of Japan from Godzilla up through the Ultraman series? Or the yakuza boss who's secretly a cross-dressing masochist who gets off on being slapped with ping-pong paddles? I could go on, but you get the point. It's crazy, it's freaky, and if you ain't with it, then you just ain't with it.
Rating:
Summary: Totally mad, totally infectious
Review: A small group of my friends and I have something of a cult fascination with this film, Takeshi Kitano's absolutely deranged slapstick comedy about a man obsessed with having sex in a car. Kitano got his start in standup comedy, after all, and this movie is like a compilation of all those gags he never got to pull with the audiences who went to see his stony, blunt-nosed nihilist masterpieces like "Violent Cop." Asao (Japanese comedian Dankan) is a nerdy man with one goal in life: passionate sex in a car. But he's got no car, and no girl, so what's a guy to do? The movie catalogues his misadventures, ranging from joining the yakuza to becoming an actor, working in a gun factory, trying (and trying, and TRYING) to rob a bank, and eventually participating in a human-invisibility experiment that goes horribly wrong. There's no telling what happens in the next five minutes, and that's both the movie's charm and its shortcoming: it's as unpredictable as it is aimless. Many of Kitano's regulars (Korean actor Hakuryu, Dankan himself, and so on) are in the cast, along with tons of other familiar comedic faces from Japan. The whole thing's scored with a crazy-quilt of Japanese pop ballads that's addictive enough that you wonder why they never released a soundtrack to go with it. But is the movie funny? Oh, god yes. It's deranged, absolutely screwloose humor on the order of "Airplane," although some of the jokes may fly right over some people's heads. What do you say, for instance, to a scene where Asao talks in a kind of Japanese Pig Latin that involves inverting each pair of syllables in a word, and requires subtitles for the JAPANESE speakers in the audience? Or the ending sequence, where they make fun of every rubber-monster man-in-suit movie out of Japan from Godzilla up through the Ultraman series? Or the yakuza boss who's secretly a cross-dressing masochist who gets off on being slapped with ping-pong paddles? I could go on, but you get the point. It's crazy, it's freaky, and if you ain't with it, then you just ain't with it.
Rating: 
Summary: An Instant Cult Classic
Review: After enjoying some of Kitano's other works [Brother, Violent Cop, Fireworks] I decided to pick up his one and only comedy, Getting Any?. Wow, my first reaction was "this cannot be by the same director, it's just so different from his other works." Then I watched it again, and I must say this film gets better and better with each subsequent viewing, as I missed a lot of the more subtle jokes during the first viewing. This film makes fun of Japanese pop culture, behaviour, and pretty much everything else that is sacred to the Japanese. It's done in a similar style as the Pink Pather series with Peter Sellers.
The yakuza scenes are my all time favorites, I can watch these any time and laugh at the wacky characters and their silly situations, and not get tired of it. Any one still wondering whether they should get this film, especially if they enjoyed Kitano's more violent movies, should wonder no more. This film is a must have for any Kitano fan, and it provides great entertainment, especially when you're watching it with your friends. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: An Instant Cult Classic
Review: After enjoying some of Kitano's other works [Brother, Violent Cop, Fireworks] I decided to pick up his one and only comedy, Getting Any?. Wow, my first reaction was "this cannot be by the same director, it's just so different from his other works." Then I watched it again, and I must say this film gets better and better with each subsequent viewing, as I missed a lot of the more subtle jokes during the first viewing. This film makes fun of Japanese pop culture, behaviour, and pretty much everything else that is sacred to the Japanese. It's done in a similar style as the Pink Pather series with Peter Sellers.
The yakuza scenes are my all time favorites, I can watch these any time and laugh at the wacky characters and their silly situations, and not get tired of it. Any one still wondering whether they should get this film, especially if they enjoyed Kitano's more violent movies, should wonder no more. This film is a must have for any Kitano fan, and it provides great entertainment, especially when you're watching it with your friends. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: I NEED...!
Review: Asao, a middle aged man, wants to have sex and comes to the conclusion that he needs a car in order to get laid. He buys a car but his plan is futile, which causes him to think that he needs a cabriolet in order to achieve his goal. This plan fails, which moves him to think that people who flie first class get to have what he so badly wants. However, he has run out of money and is in debt. This leads him to conspire to rob a bank and from this point on his troubles increase and it seems like he has lost focus on his goal. Getting Any? is an comical film that provides numerous laughs through a large number of short scenes put together into a longer film, but it becomes tedious as the film goes on.
Rating:
Summary: I NEED...!
Review: Asao, a middle aged man, wants to have sex and comes to the conclusion that he needs a car in order to get laid. He buys a car but his plan is futile, which causes him to think that he needs a cabriolet in order to achieve his goal. This plan fails, which moves him to think that people who flie first class get to have what he so badly wants. However, he has run out of money and is in debt. This leads him to conspire to rob a bank and from this point on his troubles increase and it seems like he has lost focus on his goal. Getting Any? is an comical film that provides numerous laughs through a large number of short scenes put together into a longer film, but it becomes tedious as the film goes on.
Rating:
Summary: Weird but extremely addictive
Review: I have to say I find this Kitano film very weird and very funny at the same time. The situations in which the main character gets involved in throughout the whole film get more weird each time, yet the movie remains entertaining. Despite its weirdness I kept watching it because it's also so addictive [I ended up watching some of the funniest scenes over and over again]. Viewers who don't get all the jokes at the first time around should watch the film again 'cause it is fully of subtle jokes that you would miss the first or even second time around. Overall it's a very funny film.
Rating: 
Summary: Occasionally funny
Review: I really wanted to like this film, because it is silly, and weird, and has cute topless girls in it. But I found that it was very amateurishly executed. It may have been on purpose, because apparently film maker is quite famous, and he says he is making fun of himself as a film maker. But it just did not work for me, sorry.
Rating:
Summary: Another bloody gangster movie...maybe not
Review: I'd have to say this film is quite different from the usual Kitano fare. Than again it's a comedy, and a pretty wacky one too. Yet I found Getting Any? just as entertaining as all the other more known Kitano films, albeit on a whole different level. As an all out comedy it really does a good job of entertaining, even after repeated viewings, though Kitano tends to go overboard with some of the scenes. I know that some of these scenes were edited out of the so called international cut, though this dvd happens to be the director's cut, which is a good thing because the Yakuza scenes where heavily edited from the international cut, and they are one of the funniest scenes I've ever scene. As a matter of fact the Yakuza sequences [a good part of the film] and the studio scenes alone well worth it for any Kitano fan, or comedy fan to buy this disc.
I watched this film with my friends, and they didn't get all the jokes at the first time [probably because you have to read the subtitles too, so some of your attention is reserved for that], but then we watched it again a couple of days later, and we were pointing out all the subtle jokes and "hidden characters" [hint: these are the people who died in the previous scenes, but they keep coming up in the subsequent sequences, it's a bit like watching the Simpsons or Futurama, you really have to pay attantion to catch these little private jokes]. I must say watching this film with others is twice the fun, and it's addictive too [like most cult classics].
I'd have to say Kitano does a great job yet again mixing comedy elements with violence, though there's much less violence and blood in this film [ it's a comedy after all]. People should approach this film from a different angle though, don't expect another gangster flick [not a serious one at any rate].
I warmly recommend this flick for any comedy fan, besides there aren't that many films out there that make fun of the whole Japanese society, mannerism and pop culture all wrapped up in a two hour film. Good job Kitano.
Rating:
Summary: A rare Kitano gem!
Review: I'm a big fan of Takeshi Kitano films, and I'm glad I picked up this rare comedy gem. Getting Any? is definitely different from his other films, but that does not mean it is not entertaining. On the contrary, Getting Any? holds up very well even after repeated viewings, and more importantly the jokes are just as funny as they were the first time around. It is quite refreshing to watch Kitano and his wacky characters in this all out comedy, that makes fun of just about everything holy to the Japanese culture. I sincerely recommend this film to anyone who likes comedies. It's a must for Kitano fans.
|
