Movie Monday: Gozu

Takashi Miike is an...um... interesting director. That may be the understatement of the century. On the one hand he's fairly well known for his more disturbing films like Ichi the Killer, Audition, and Imprint. On the other hand he's fully capable of more family friendly fare such as Ninja Kids!!! and Zebraman (which is by the way my favorite superhero movie) The bottom line is this: Miike is a very versatile director with a penchant for making movies that are strange and weird. Gozu is no exception to this rule.

Brace yourself.

Gozu is the Japanese word for "cow-head" it follows the story of a yakuza named Minami as he travels to Nagoya to essentially execute his friend and comrade Ozaki. Ozaki has been chosen for execution because he's a little unstable, beating down cute little dogs because he believes them to be "trained yakuza attack dogs" and nearly shooting innocent motorists for driving "yakuza cars".

When they get to Nagoya, Minami promptly loses track of Ozaki and discovers that the inhabitants of the town are less than helpful, mostly because they are all extremely strange. Between the innkeeper who produces and bottles her breastmilk for the town's use, to the weather-obsessed patrons of the local coffee shop, all the way up to the American liquor store clerk who reads her responses off of cue cards. 

Also him.

Of course, the weirdness intensifies when Minami is finally handed a note by a cow-headed man saying that Ozaki will meet him at the town dump. Upon arriving he discovers that Ozaki is dead, already eliminated by the yakuza executioners.  He then meets up with woman claiming to be Ozaki in a new body. What happens after that...is just ...just really bizarre.

Ozaki and Minami travel back together. Ozaki seduces their boss (I'll spare you his sexual kinks, but trust me they're quite unique.) Minami busts up the affair and kills the boss, which leads to Ozaki and Minami having sex until the original Ozaki comes thundering out of the uterus mid-coitus. 

Just like this.

The movie ends shortly afterwards.

So what did I think? I thought it was a humorous film for sure and it was definitely what I expected from Takashi Miike. I knew what I was getting into when I watched this film, and even though I was hoping for something a bit more, I wasn't too terribly disappointed by the results. The characters are memorable and the plot unique. Really the biggest negative point to me was that the movie was over 2 hours long. I'm alright with a movie being lengthy as long as I don't feel like it's dragging, but there were times when I felt the story was stalled a bit.


All in all, 3 out of 5 cow-heads