Gokudô kyôfu dai-gekijô: Gozu

The synopsis on the DVD case compares it to something in the style of David Lynch. I would agree with that. It's definitely a surreal and strange movie. I would not rank it as high as Ichi the Killer or Audition , both of which I loved. This is Takishi Miike doing what he does best, trying to shock people but I think he's trying too hard with this movie at times to the point where it gets boring. The movie seems to loose itself in it's own strangeness at times but overall it's accomplishes what it's out to accomplish.

This movie is a nice piece of artistic filmaking and I must say that it actually made me much more uncomfortable then Ichi or Audition especially the last 30 mins or so.....watch it and you'll know what I mean.

Overall, if you are a Miike fan or a fan of David Lynch or that style of film-making then you'll appreciate this movie. If you have seen this and have not seen Ichi the Killer or Audition, do yourself a favor and go out and rent or buy those.

Takashi Miike's stark, "Yakuza Horror Theatre" presentation Gozu (2003) is an infernal cinematic nightmare of fear and anxiety, played out within a sepia-toned subterranean underworld abstracted to the point of outright parody. Like many of the director's more personal and idiosyncratic pictures, the plot is largely secondary to the uncomfortable atmosphere and wild sense of spectacle presented on screen, as Miike constructs an absurd and enigmatic story of a loyal Yakuza henchman struggling with issues of homosexuality, guilt and desire when he is required by his boss to "dispose" of his mentally unstable brother in arms. This incredibly personal and moral dilemma - in which the central character must juggle the greater notions of loyalty to his boss and the loyalty to his best-friend and mentor-like figure that he's obviously quite attracted to - creates a rift within the world of the film that plunges the whole story into suffocating surrealism, horror and the absurd.

As with his other great masterworks, such as Audition (1999), Birds (2000), Visitor Q (2001) and The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001), Miike takes the story in so many continually contrasting and self-consciously abstract directions as to render any notion of a single interpretation entirely void. Instead, he bombards the audience with a seemingly endless barrage of repeatedly warped visions, uncomfortable scenarios and bursts of disarming black comedy to continually shock, amuse and perturb us into a sense of ultimate submission. Eventually, the point of the film becomes less important that the sub-textual ideas behind it and the surreal and over-the-top manner in which the director depicts it - with the tone of the film switching continually from the first scene to the last, as the absurdities of the Yakuza genre that Miike knows so well are persistently ripped-to-shreds and turned into fodder for this meta-physical, psycho-sexual conundrum.

With this in mind, it is best to approach Gozu as a prolonged nightmare, complete with personal demons and elements of religious imagery interweaving, as all notions of character and conventional narrative development are done away with in favour of an almost stream of consciousness presentation where the real, the dream and the purely metaphorical are smashed together and left in shards for the audience to reinterpret as they see fit. With Gozu, more so than any of his other recent pictures, Miike takes his personal style further than even the hall-of-mirrors-like surrealism of Audition; creating a dark and distorted recreation of a nameless Japanese underworld that is labyrinthine and claustrophobic throughout, whilst simultaneously jarring us back and forth with Buddhist symbolism, bizarre caricatures and a continual hum of aural, industrialised ambiance. The whole thing is further heightened by the glowing yellow sepia tones of the cinematography, merging with the occasional shards of red and blue lighting, the lingering shadows around the edges of the frame and the often distancing and exaggerated camera angles and choices of location.

With these factors in place, it would be easy to categorise Gozu as a horror film; however, this simply isn't the case. As with many of Miike's more iconic films, Gozu follows no singular genre or style; moving freely between the characteristics of illogical comedy, knock-about buddy picture, gritty Yakuza-thriller, unrequited romance and psychological horror story seemingly simultaneously. Obviously, when we take this approach into consideration, Gozu won't be the kind of film that appeals to everyone, with a certain interest and familiarity with Miike as a filmmaker required by the audience to really appreciate the sense of humour and the continual shifts in tone. Even then, multiple viewing will be needed for the audience to fully digest the film's central message and layers of potential interpretation. However, it's definitely worth it, especially for anyone with a keen interest in the work of similarly minded filmmakers like David Lynch, Terry Gilliam, Sogo Ishii, Ken Russell, David Cronenberg and Shinya Tsukamoto.

Gozu takes the surreal horror and ambient farce of films like The Happiness of the Katakuris and Visitor Q to the next conceivable level of cinematic deconstruction, self-reference and meta-textual despair; as we literally submerge ourselves in a homosexual love story played out against a self-aware purgatory-like construction, rife with the allusions to the filmmakers aforementioned, and further applied alongside the desolate use of landscapes, jarring shifts from parody to horror and the freewheeling structure of the narrative itself. Combined with the fine performances from Hideki Sone, Kimika Yoshino, Tetsurô Tamba and Miike regulars Sho Aikawa and Renji Ishibashi, Gozu is easily one of its directors best and most unique endeavours; an arch, dead-pan, deranged and often dangerous sub-textual trawl through one man's despair and Freudian confusion dressed up as a post-apocalyptic fable of ridiculous gangster theatrics, role playing, gender metamorphosis and pure, existentialist angst.

Basically a Japanese Yakuza Twin Peaks Lynch-like movie. Starts off slow because you have no idea where the movie is going but you slowly realise that you can appreciate it for the weird, surreal atmosphere.

Not sure what the movie is trying to say, but if someone told me it's a more fucked up, twisted version of Eyes Wide Shut in terms of undergoing some sexual odyssey, then I'll gladly believe them.

Also...that...ending...

Another unique outing by Takeshi Miike. Way off the wall. A yakuza soldier finds himself searching for his brother (possibly dead) in a town full of lunatics and cow-headed demons. Weird Buddhist and Freudian symbols abound. One can't help but draw comparisons to David Lynch's work -- in particular Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive. I think Miike has admitted as much himself. Highly imaginative filmmmaking. My only complaint is the pacing. It's way slow for like the first hour. I had the same problem with Audition. I can appreciate the patient construction of a creepy mood, but I think Miike could step on the gas every now and then. Still, I recommend this one. It's quite a trip. There's also a fair dose of tongue-and-cheek humor in this film. (I guess it depends on one's sense of humor.)

Dog-lovers will delight in the opening scene.

e seen more than half a dozen Miike flicks and GOZU is definitely he's most deviantly outrageous so far. What it all means is never clear. And yet that's exactly why the movie remains so strangely compelling. There are points where absolutely nothing makes sense and there are moments were everything magically clicks together, revealing a world of possibilities, a horrible, absurd, funny, nightmarish fabric that should be woven of crotchless panties, breastmilk and cow head masks.

GOZU's tagline should be "Beware all who enter". Even seasoned Miike fans might be put off. The first scene involving a mad yakuza beating six shades of sh#t out of a "yakuza-sniffing" dog only hints at what is to follow. Is it gonna be an outrageous crime flick in the mold of FUDOH and DOA or is there more to it? Basically the plot involves a yakuza underling driving the aforementioned mad brother in a remote town called Nagoya in order to "dispose" of him according to the boss's orders who fears his madness is getting out of hand. After doing so, he stops to grab a bite leaving the corpse in his convertible car which upon his return finds missing. The corpse, not the car.

From then on GOZU plunges headlong in a bewildering world populated by a motley crowd of the most insane characters where surrealism, mystery and dark comedy seamlessly intertwine. To what purpose? In a way, this is Miike's most Lynch-ian movie to date and not just because it's so perplexing; psychosexual abuse, perversion, identity are all key themes here. Is the main character fighting and coming to terms with his homosexuality? If ERASERHEAD is Lynch's feverish nightmare on parenthood, is GOZU its companion piece on motherhood? Right down to a finale that reminded me of Cronenberg's brand of 'body horror', GOZU is in turns exhilarating, hilarious, puzzling but above all a creative, original work. Which is more than can be said for directors with twice Miike's name and reputation.