Rating: 
Summary: GOZU
Review: How can I describe this movie? Let's just say that the most screwed up images that you can think of don't even come close to the reality that is GOZU. Gozu (which stands for Cow-head) is a messed up love story of a man in the mafia who fights his way from one boss to the other to help rescue his soul mate. Sounds lame?!? I can't do it justice...Just watch this movie!!!For my final words, I'd like to leave you with this...ladle up the ass. Thank you
Rating:
Summary: one of the best movies ever
Review: i absolutely loved this film. without destroying the story let me tell you if one were to classify this film it would be a cross between a gangster, horror thriller, suspense mystery, and a weird twisted version of love. The japaneese are twisted and boy is this movie its gots some weird but intellectual humor constantly throughout the film. Its a little slow but it adds to the strangness of the world the main character is in. Every scene is so perfectly scripted in such an odd but intriguing way. The main character searches for his brother which may sound kinda boring but its bizarre, everyone he meets and everywhere he goes is off, theres something just not right about it all. Its like he's stuck in a dream and he is the only one and all he wants to do is find his lost brother! Throw in the dreamlike paranoia with the artistic creative side of this directors works and you got GOZU! gozu meaning cow head's got some real memorable scenes that yourll be feeling sick to or laughing about or just plain remembering at random points in the day for a long time.
Rating: 
Summary: Cow Demons Are Awesome
Review: Like most of Takashi Miike's films, 'Gozu' is tough to watch. There are scenes here that are just hard to look at without scrunching your face up in shock/disguist(i.e. the dog at the beginning of the film, the lactation scene, the adult birth at the end, etc.). The film is slowly paced with sparse dialogue, filled with strange imagery, random scenes and oddly disturbing characters(i.e. ladle man, and the possibly retarded guy who keeps talking about the weather). In a nutshell, and for lack of better words, this film is truly repugnant.
I'm not really sure how to explain the film. I think it is better to go in knowing nothing and be amazed and/or disturbed by the many goings ons. This is not for the weak stomached. This is not for action movie lovers. I really don't know who this movie is for.
Miike is an amazing director. His films need to be seen because he is doing things today that no filmmaker anywhere in the world would even think of doing and he's doing them in a way that no one could or would even dare to. He's pushing the envelope in a time when very few filmmakers are. And 'Gozu' is probably the furthest he's ever pushed it.
Rating: 
Summary: Not strange enough and 30 mintues too long.
Review: Like the films of Lynch, Cronenberg and occasionally Luis Bunuel, Takashi Miike's GOZU is at moments so slow you think you're gonna die, but just weird enough to keep you watching.
Yakuza Ozaki has been acting a little strange lately, but when he charges out of a meeting with Chairman Azamawari in order to kill a "yakuza attack dog" Azamawari sees him as a liability and secretly orders Minami to have Ozaki delivered to a junkyard that doubles as a yakuza disposal facility. Along the way Minami accidentally kills Ozaki, but when he stops to call in, the body disappears.
Right here's where reality flies right out the window and everything goes bonkers. A man with the head of a cow licks Minami's face with a sticky tongue, a cross dressing zombie screams as he poops on the floor, a old woman lactates into glass bottles and even Chairman Azamawari gets in on the action as he rams a ladle into himself (I'll let you guess where) in order to knock boots with Ozaki who's now reappeared as a very attractive female.
And just wait until you get to the end. Yikes! I'll never forget it as long as I live! If there's one thing I've learned about Takashi Miike it's that he always and I mean always ends his movies in a big way. Even his short film "Box" in the collection THREE EXTREMES has a wacky ending I didn't see coming at all.
Definitely worth watching, but just be warned: it's very slow moving at times.
D: Takashi Miike (AUDITION, DEAD OR ALIVE 1 - 3)
S: Sakichi Sato (ICHI THE KILLER)
Minami - Hideki Sone (ZEBRAMAN, THE PERFECT EDUCATION)
Chairman Azamawari - Renji Ishibashi (AUDITION, DEAD OR ALIVE)
Ozaki - Sho Aikawa (DEAD OR ALIVE 1-3)
Female Ozaki - Kimika Yoshino (WIZARD OF DARKNESS 1-2)
Rating:
Summary: Got milk?
Review: Miike has directed a descent into a surreal nightmare with Gozu. I applaud him for his brave effort because it will probably be loved or hated, maybe never fully understood. It isn't the most linear of films, but that's one of the things that makes it different. Art is subjective and one should make up their own mind sometimes instead of having everything spoon fed. Of course if you understand how Miike as a director enjoys leaving the interpretation open, then you might get this more. It deals with subjects like lactation, incest, cross dressing, homosexuality, and ladle love-oh boy, in ways one might not expect. It isn't an action packed fast paced flick so be prepared to ponder...
Rating:
Summary: Deliciously surreal and strange, but lacking a thread
Review: Not having seen anything but "Gozu" in what I've read is an illustrious catalogue by filmmaker Takasha Miike, I can't judge him solely on the strengths and weaknesses of this film in particular. It was a wild, riveting ride, with some unforgettable scenes (particularly the opening, in which a slowly deteriorating member of the Yakuza crime family murders a puppy in the belief that it is a "Yakuza attack dog", and of course the queasy "rebirth" scene of that very same gangster at the film's conclusion), and at times reminds one of a Beckett play (the man with the pigment problem reclining in the field with a magazine, the innkeeper whipping her husband to generate "spirits", etc) a Lynch film (characters changing identities, gender bending, scenes of the most cartoonish sexual debauchery), and Monty Python all at once. The problem, though, is that none of this means anything. Unlike Lynch or Beckett we can find no discernible meaning, not even with the most circumspect viewing, simply because there is none.
While I love surrealism, a movie does need to be more than the sum of it's parts, and "Gozu", for all it's nail biting scenes and undeniably menacing atmosphere, is only that. A member of the Yakuza family named Ozaki is killed as he is about to commit a random of madness by Minami, a friend indebted to him forever for saving his life.
From here everything goes wacky, and not in an unpleasant manner entirely: his corpse disappears from Minami's car. There are strong elements of Hitchcock here, too, but from this point in the film nothing really makes any sense, even in retrospect. We see a host of bizarre and stomach churning things: an inkeeper who likes to squirt her own milk rather than buy it from the store, handicapped Japanese people screaming about whether the day was hot or not. Meanwhile our protagonist is taken on a journey that is imaginative and surreal but, in the end, all smoke.
In the film essay Miike cites the influence, which is obvious anyway, of David Lynch films like "Lost Highway" and "Mulholland Drive". There are definitely similarities. In those movies, though, as strange and dreamlike as they are, there is an ultimate explanation, or host of explanations, for why things have happened this way. Not all Lynch films have an "ultimate point", but those two did, and "Gozu" most certainly does not. This is more than enjoyable, don't get me wrong; in fact, for people of certain tastes, including my own, I'd recommend it. But don't expect a puzzle or anything to think extensively about.
Rating:
Summary: Yes
Review: One of the best movies ever imho.
I wouldn't expect it to make complete sense; I understood it best as "modern art.." I think it's fair to say that it is deliberately surreal. Wow, what fantastic goings-on. The feel of this movie I felt was David Lynch-y, for sure. Some of what's in store for you: the mob boss who can only get off with a ladle in his butt, the woman hotel proprieter that offers her [vital organ] to main character protagonist (and who also feeds her own brother in this manner) and is very dissapointed when he declines, the very odd townfolk in general, the rebirth of a full grown man.
It is supposed to be mystery, and the solution to the mystery is even more mysterious. I think this movie is absolutely fantastic. The imagery and style are very interesting throughout and the conclusion of the movie still makes me giggle when I think about it.
Rating:
Summary: A bit boring, actually
Review: Self-styled bad boy auteur Takashi Miike has made some pretty bizarre additions to his canon during the past few years. Anyone who thought they had him pegged as an indie schlock-pimp would've been thrown by the likes of Zebraman (offbeat family comedy) and Chakushin Ari, aka One Missed Call (a Ring-esque horror that was about as conventional as they come). However, even by these standards, Gozu is a bit of an odd tangent - could this be the first truly BORING Miike film?
Short answer: yes. Though it's bookended by some spectacularly gross sequences (if you thought Audition's use of cheese wire was excrutiating enough, you should see what Miike can do with a ladle), the majority of Gozu is devoted to a painfully drawn-out shaggy dog story of sorts. The plot - for what it's worth - centers around hapless yakuza Minami, who is charged with taking his "brother", Ozaki, to Nagoya to have him bumped-off. When the latter mysteriously disappears, Minami trawls through a beaten-up rural wasteland to find him, alternately helped and hindered by a slew of weirdo yokels (among them, an ever-lactating inn hostess, a self-styled albino and a failed psychic). There are shades of David Lynch and oddball British TV series The League of Gentlemen at play here, but Gozu lacks the focus of either - its occasional jokes hang in the air for minutes on end, never quite finding a punchline. Over the course of its tortuous two-hours-plus running time, Miike barely musters half an hour of decent material - though, to be fair, when he finally lets rip with his gross-out finale, you'll almost be willing to forgive him for the torpor that preceded it. Almost.
Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: So good I can't even begin to tell you. A new favorite. Miike's best film I have seen so far. An imaginative achievement. Not for the faint of heart and most definitely not for children or anyone under the age of eighteen. This is a hard "R". There are at least six classic scenes in this film. Haunting, beautiful and terrifying entertaiment.
Rating:
Summary: The 4 Stars Is For the Film Itself, NOT the DVD Release
Review: So, as the headline suggests, I love Gozu and find it to be my favorite Takashi Miike film so far. So many others have written about it that I won't bother trying to summarize the plot (which is more or less wide open to interpretation anyway). Suffice it to say I saw it at the theater a couple months back and after it was finished left the cinema utterly DAZED. Which is why the DVD is such a disappointment. As I said, the film itself is awesome BUT for one thing the disc's packaging promises that it's letterboxed. Unfortunately it actually isn't and as, someone who saw it in the theater, I can tell you that the lack of letterboxing really hurts the film at several points- for a perfect (and very early) example, the soon-to-be-infamous-if-it-isn't-already opening "yakuza dog" sequence. Also, chapter stops are nice if, oh, say my phone or doorbell rings while I'm watching the film and I have to stop it (my DVD player will turn off completely if left idle for something like 15 minutes so...); unfortunately there aren't chapter selections either. Geez, was this thing rushed out for Christmas or what?! Some imminently quotable lines in here and the DVD has a couple hilariously vague interviews with Miike ("Gozu is how a child looks at the world..." etc. WHAT?!) but overall this film deserves a lot better and I've never before encountered DVD packaging that was inaccurate like this.
|
