Movie Review: Gozu

I'm not a very big fan of people who don't appreciate the genius of Takashi Miike. In fact, if you stopped me on the street to verbally express your utter distaste for the man's work, I may be inclined to violently pummel you about the head and neck until a very creamy steak sauce begins oozing profusely from your tattered nostrils. As a special service to your bereaved loved ones, I will thoughtfully drop a postcard in the mail detailing the whereabouts of your hideously battered corpse. As long as they don't mind searching Tokyo storm drains for your remains, I doubt they'll have much difficulty locating it.

But, I digress.

Miike's surreal 2003 effort Gozu is a tough nut to crack, even for someone as dedicated to all things Takashi as I am. Attempting to completely wrap your tender young brain around this freakish material is likely to cause plenty of unsightly mental stretch marks. So do take special care when allowing this Lynchian beast to lurch menacingly across your television screen.

In fact, it might be in your best interest to accept everything at face value, since I seriously doubt Miike has buried some bizarre message within the inky black bowels of this truly warped Japanese masterpiece. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Seriously.

Gozu starts out innocently enough, focusing mainly on an up-and-coming yakuza named Minami (Hideki Sone) and his mission to deliver crazed loose cannon Ozaki (Sho Aikawa) to a specialized waste management yard in some far corner of the Japanese countryside. During an unexpected encounter with what Ozaki perceives to be a compact car specially designed for the elimination of the yakuza, our hero is forced to administer what most therapists would define as "tough love," a decision which ultimately claims the life of his best friend/mentor.

Or does it?

A short pit stop at a local diner results in Ozaki's eventual disappearance from the back seat of Minami's ultra spiffy convertible. Did someone spirit away the corpse when our hero was chowing down on some fine chicken custard, or is something a bit more sinister going down in this unusual little town?

So begins Minami's descent into a nightmarish world filled with milky breasts, bizarre sexual reconfiguration, obsessive weather enthusiasts, and a flabby guy sporting a drooling cow's head. I'm sure there's a puzzle to be solved while viewing this highly original cinematic mind rape, but I'll be damned if I know what it is.

While I'd like to think that I have a few tasty clues as to what, exactly, transpired over the course of these befuddling two hours, accurately conveying my half-baked theories may prove to be an impossible task. There's certainly a lot going on behind the scenes of Miike and screenwriter Sakichi Sato's (Ichi The Killer) creepy little world, most of which is completely lost on yours truly. I may be a little slow on the uptake, dear readers, but at least I'm secure enough to admit it.

Article Author: T. Rigney

T. Rigney was specifically designed for the mass consumption of B-grade cinema from around the world. His roughly translated thoughts and feelings can be found lurking suspiciously at The Film Fiend, Fatally Yours, and Film Threat. …

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