japanesedream_72 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
japanesedream_72) wrote2005-07-30 06:25 pm
japanesedream_72) wrote2005-07-30 06:25 pm
*too tired to think up a good subject line*
Went to chiro today, then to the bank & to the shopping centre to pick up the paper. After a light lunch at home, cut the grass - both front & back. What a workout! My grandpa was feeling pretty good today, so he got out the edger & trimmed up some of the bits I couldn’t reach.
Relaxed the rest of the day. Watched some baseball, talked to my mom. Made tofu & vegetable rice fajitas for dinner.
I’m still pooped, though, from all that lawnmower action. Time for some ice cream.
The practise of direct-to-video movie-making in Japan, also known as Video Cinema, or V-cinema, has begun to equal &, in some cases, even surpass the films made via the traditional cinematic process, particularly when it comes to creativity. Among the vanguard of V-cinema auteurs is director Takashi Miike.
Known to crank out up to 9 V-cinema pictures in a single year, one would think such a prolific film-maker would fast run out of ideas. But this review marks the 5th of his movies I’ve seen so far (6 counting the short film he contributed to “Three...Extremes”), & if my little mini-collection is any indication of the diversity & originality of this director’s projects, he seems to have an endless reserve still waiting to be tapped.
Often compared to the films of David Lynch for its strange characters & even stranger imagery, “Gozu” (http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/gozu.shtml) begins in fairly typical (translation: outrageous) Miike fashion: a high-ranking Yakuza member, Aniki Ozaki (Sho Aikawa, from Miike’s “Dead Or Alive” movies) seems to be losing his mind. In the middle of a meeting, he shows his boss a pair of young women standing out on the street with a small, fluffy dog. He claims the dog is a rival syndicate member that is planning to attack them, & heads outside to summarily eliminate it. Animal lovers beware! The scene gets a bit extreme, although if you take into account that it isn’t a real puppy at that point, it’s as funny as it is repulsive.
Unfortunately, if you’re looking for the rest of the film to keep up the pace of those opening moments, you will be disappointed. Parts of the next hour’s worth of story (it’s a 2 hour & 10 minute film) become almost insufferably slow. But don’t worry, it picks up later on. And there’s a finale to this thing that makes it all worthwhile.
Worried about Aniki’s mental state, the boss sends him out with an underling named Minami. Minami looks up to Aniki, says Aniki saved his life once. I’m not sure where they’re going exactly; in the film, Minami keeps in touch with the boss & it seems he’s supposed to bring Aniki to an office for a meeting somewhere in Nagoya, but on the box the DVD came in, it says Minami is charged with disposing of Aniki. Whatever the case, the result is the same: Aniki’s behavoiur becomes increasingly erratic, & Minami is forced to render Aniki unconscious. However, he fails to secure Aniki’s seat belt or even lay him down in the back seat, so when Minami has to stop short - after getting lost in his thoughts & failing to notice that the road on which he is driving abruptly ends - Aniki is thrown forward, bashes his head, & breaks his neck.
Minami freaks out briefly, then stops at a coffee shop to collect himself. The place is littered with odd characters, like a guy who says the same phrases over & over, & a transvestite waiter who gives Minami a cup of chawan-mushi (steamed egg custard) with his coffee. After a bit, Minami begins to feel ill, & heads for the bathroom. When he leaves the coffee shop, his car is in the parking lot, but Aniki’s body is nowhere to be found.
Thinking perhaps Aniki wasn’t dead after all, Minami goes back to the coffee shop & asks if anyone came in while he was in the loo, but they don’t seem to have the slightest idea what he’s talking about. So he drives off to search for Aniki, & promptly blows a tire. Soon, he is approached by a man whose face is under-pigmented on one side, giving him a Phantom of the Opera sort of look. He offers to fix the car, & takes Minami to a junkyard-y sort of place where they can get another tire. There, Minami is introduced to another man who says both men will help Minami look for Aniki if Minami can answer a riddle, which he does. As it’s getting late, they plan to start their search in the morning. Minami is then taken to a small rooming house where he can spend the night.
The brother & sister who run the rooming house are a very strange pair, indeed. He seems a wee bit slow, brain-wise, & she can lactate at will. (I had a feeling this was setting me up for “Visitor Q”, a particularly intense Miike movie at the very top of my must-find list, which is - so I’ve heard - chock-full of such bodily fluids.) The food looks fairly decent (though the milk might be a bit of a put-off), but weird gooey stuff drips from the ceiling.
Phantom-dude comes back the next day & they eventually start looking for Aniki, re-tracing steps, asking about, with no success, but the film jumps up a weirdness notch or 2 when the spirits of the dead start getting mentioned, & already eccentric characters get even more bizarre. Soon, Minami gets a lead from Phantom-dude, & follows it, realising he is once again traveling in circles, but this time he comes across clues as to what may have happened to Aniki. Things get freaky when a drooling, cow-headed demon with a roving tongue appears in what may or may not be a dream, leaving Minami with a new lead.
Not only has the film picked up by this point, but the story gets even stranger, especially when Minami meets a woman who knows things about him that only Aniki knew.
While, overall, not as impressive as some of Miike’s other films, “Gozu” does have its moments. Though I was nearly drowsing in some spots, by the end of this movie, I was screaming. The last few scenes are among the freakiest & most amazing things I’ve ever seen. Not so much grotesque as they are astounding (& more than a little insane), they are definitely worth the wait, & will make this movie unforgettable, despite its shortcomings.
Probably best left for die-hard (or working on it) Miike enthusiasts, if you can stand the difficult pacing, give it a look. Or, just jump to the end if you want to have your mind blown without following the story, & check out one of the director’s many other movies instead. Then come back to this one when you’re better-acquainted with Miike’s work. You’ll appreciate it all the more.
You're a red wolf. You're unusual and not seen very
often.
What color wolf are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Relaxed the rest of the day. Watched some baseball, talked to my mom. Made tofu & vegetable rice fajitas for dinner.
I’m still pooped, though, from all that lawnmower action. Time for some ice cream.
The practise of direct-to-video movie-making in Japan, also known as Video Cinema, or V-cinema, has begun to equal &, in some cases, even surpass the films made via the traditional cinematic process, particularly when it comes to creativity. Among the vanguard of V-cinema auteurs is director Takashi Miike.
Known to crank out up to 9 V-cinema pictures in a single year, one would think such a prolific film-maker would fast run out of ideas. But this review marks the 5th of his movies I’ve seen so far (6 counting the short film he contributed to “Three...Extremes”), & if my little mini-collection is any indication of the diversity & originality of this director’s projects, he seems to have an endless reserve still waiting to be tapped.
Often compared to the films of David Lynch for its strange characters & even stranger imagery, “Gozu” (http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/gozu.shtml) begins in fairly typical (translation: outrageous) Miike fashion: a high-ranking Yakuza member, Aniki Ozaki (Sho Aikawa, from Miike’s “Dead Or Alive” movies) seems to be losing his mind. In the middle of a meeting, he shows his boss a pair of young women standing out on the street with a small, fluffy dog. He claims the dog is a rival syndicate member that is planning to attack them, & heads outside to summarily eliminate it. Animal lovers beware! The scene gets a bit extreme, although if you take into account that it isn’t a real puppy at that point, it’s as funny as it is repulsive.
Unfortunately, if you’re looking for the rest of the film to keep up the pace of those opening moments, you will be disappointed. Parts of the next hour’s worth of story (it’s a 2 hour & 10 minute film) become almost insufferably slow. But don’t worry, it picks up later on. And there’s a finale to this thing that makes it all worthwhile.
Worried about Aniki’s mental state, the boss sends him out with an underling named Minami. Minami looks up to Aniki, says Aniki saved his life once. I’m not sure where they’re going exactly; in the film, Minami keeps in touch with the boss & it seems he’s supposed to bring Aniki to an office for a meeting somewhere in Nagoya, but on the box the DVD came in, it says Minami is charged with disposing of Aniki. Whatever the case, the result is the same: Aniki’s behavoiur becomes increasingly erratic, & Minami is forced to render Aniki unconscious. However, he fails to secure Aniki’s seat belt or even lay him down in the back seat, so when Minami has to stop short - after getting lost in his thoughts & failing to notice that the road on which he is driving abruptly ends - Aniki is thrown forward, bashes his head, & breaks his neck.
Minami freaks out briefly, then stops at a coffee shop to collect himself. The place is littered with odd characters, like a guy who says the same phrases over & over, & a transvestite waiter who gives Minami a cup of chawan-mushi (steamed egg custard) with his coffee. After a bit, Minami begins to feel ill, & heads for the bathroom. When he leaves the coffee shop, his car is in the parking lot, but Aniki’s body is nowhere to be found.
Thinking perhaps Aniki wasn’t dead after all, Minami goes back to the coffee shop & asks if anyone came in while he was in the loo, but they don’t seem to have the slightest idea what he’s talking about. So he drives off to search for Aniki, & promptly blows a tire. Soon, he is approached by a man whose face is under-pigmented on one side, giving him a Phantom of the Opera sort of look. He offers to fix the car, & takes Minami to a junkyard-y sort of place where they can get another tire. There, Minami is introduced to another man who says both men will help Minami look for Aniki if Minami can answer a riddle, which he does. As it’s getting late, they plan to start their search in the morning. Minami is then taken to a small rooming house where he can spend the night.
The brother & sister who run the rooming house are a very strange pair, indeed. He seems a wee bit slow, brain-wise, & she can lactate at will. (I had a feeling this was setting me up for “Visitor Q”, a particularly intense Miike movie at the very top of my must-find list, which is - so I’ve heard - chock-full of such bodily fluids.) The food looks fairly decent (though the milk might be a bit of a put-off), but weird gooey stuff drips from the ceiling.
Phantom-dude comes back the next day & they eventually start looking for Aniki, re-tracing steps, asking about, with no success, but the film jumps up a weirdness notch or 2 when the spirits of the dead start getting mentioned, & already eccentric characters get even more bizarre. Soon, Minami gets a lead from Phantom-dude, & follows it, realising he is once again traveling in circles, but this time he comes across clues as to what may have happened to Aniki. Things get freaky when a drooling, cow-headed demon with a roving tongue appears in what may or may not be a dream, leaving Minami with a new lead.
Not only has the film picked up by this point, but the story gets even stranger, especially when Minami meets a woman who knows things about him that only Aniki knew.
While, overall, not as impressive as some of Miike’s other films, “Gozu” does have its moments. Though I was nearly drowsing in some spots, by the end of this movie, I was screaming. The last few scenes are among the freakiest & most amazing things I’ve ever seen. Not so much grotesque as they are astounding (& more than a little insane), they are definitely worth the wait, & will make this movie unforgettable, despite its shortcomings.
Probably best left for die-hard (or working on it) Miike enthusiasts, if you can stand the difficult pacing, give it a look. Or, just jump to the end if you want to have your mind blown without following the story, & check out one of the director’s many other movies instead. Then come back to this one when you’re better-acquainted with Miike’s work. You’ll appreciate it all the more.
You're a red wolf. You're unusual and not seen very
often.
What color wolf are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
no subject
Mmmmmm, ice cream!
lol!
Sorry to sound smug, but that's the funniest thing I've heard all day!
Yup. Chocolate chip ice cream. ^_^
Re: lol!
Re: lol!
Re: lol!
Re: lol!
Re: lol!
Re: lol!
http://www.thefilmasylum.com/albums/Gozu/aad.jpg
Re: lol!
Re: lol!
Incidentally, I know you've seen "Ichi The Killer", but is that your only Miike film to date?
Re: lol!
Re: lol!