Yet another review of a Takashi Miike film. Sorry but I just can't seem to get enough of his stuff lately. Anyway, there was a lot of hype surrounding this film, particularly consisting of David Lynch comparisions, so I felt obligated to check it out. I rented Walk The Line as well, not just because it looks like a great film, plain and simple, but also to serve as a chaser of sorts to this in case it turned out to be too weird. Sure enough, Gozu was indeed very weird (although I think Eraserhead still has first prize in weirdness). Nevertheless, it was still weirder than Izo, the last Miike film I saw, which, frankly, had a lot of potential but was perhaps too experimental for its own good. Unlike Izo, Gozu was actually quite entertaining and managed to go pretty far out there without losing sight of the story.

The film opens up in a Japanese resturaunt where a couple of mean looking Yakuza gangsters are holding a meeting. One Yakuza in particular, Ozaki, feels a little uneasy. Something outside the resturaunt has struck him as a threat. I don't want to spoil what happens next so I'll just say that what follows is a brutal beating that would have PETA's heads exploding. Afterwards, the Yakuza boss decides that Ozaki is a little too nutty and sends Ozaki's brother and best friend Minami on a mission to take him out. Reluctantly Minami drives Ozaki into the countryside and takes a wrong turn that causes Ozaki to break his neck when the car stops abruptly. Afterwards, Minami stops at a local diner run by a couple of quirky Japanese country folk. When he returns to the car, he finds Ozaki's body has disappeared. The rest of the film follows this poor guy's searche for his brother in a secluded town full of oddballs including a creepy innkeeper and his lactating sister, junkyard workers who press dead bodies, an American woman who literally reads her dialogue off the ceiling, and the cowheaded demon which the film is named after.

What makes Gozu entertaining is its mixing of various genres. The first few scenes feel a Yakuza gangster flick while others range from being funny, creepy, funny and creepy, or just downright trippy. The film is also sort of a spoof off the "buddy movie" as it takes the relationship between Minami and Ozaki to borderline homosexual proportions. The film's final scene is particularly bizarre, disturbing, and over-the-top as well as unexpected as the scene preceding it is also quite gross but darkly humorous as well. The Lynch influences are very apparent in some of the imagery Miike uses but he manages to make all of it his own. All in all, a very surreal, atmospheric, occasionally hilarious but ultimately original piece of work.

Oh Man, this film has to be one of the weirder films I've seen lately.  I would definitely say this is Pulp Fiction mixed with a bit of Eraserhead.   And James, Eraserhead isn't actually that strange once you realise what it's really about.

It wasn't as gory as Ichi, which sort of surprised me, though I was grateful for it.

But this film had me flinching from it's pure strangeness and unexpected twists and turns.  Then it had me laughing my ass off and then flinching again.  It was a bizarre mix of humour and nightmare that carried you along wondering what odd thing was going to happen next until the end, where you just go...

WTF!

The ending ranks up there with some of the most perplexing I've ever seen and I've seen a lot of endings - perplexing ones too.   If you like strange films with a certain degree of inscrutability and some perversity thrown in, then this is definitely one for you.