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Gozu Director: Takashi Miike Number of Items: 1 Format: Color, Widescreen Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Running Time: 129 minutes Studio: Pathfinder Home Ente Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2004-11-23 Buy from Amazon

Customer Reviews: Total numer of reviews: 27 Average rating: 4.0 "Delicious fantastic movie" Takashi Miike is a master of body horror and squirm-inducing sexual weirdness, as he's taken many opportunities to demonstrate. He's also a filmmaker capable of great wit and the cogent dissemination of actual ideas. For those who can withstand the visceral terror of the torture scenes in Audition, there is the reward of seeing an intelligent filmmaker using and subverting genre filmmaking techniques to explore an ugly facet of his culture. Gozu has its memorable moments, certainly, and is not the off-the-wall barrage of weirdness for its own sake to which Miike's work occasionally descends. It doesn't quite cohere, and its story and tone owe too much to Oliver Stone's U-Turn and David Lynch's work, but Miike has a knack for tapping into deep-seated cultural anxieties, particularly male sexual anxiety, that few filmmakers can match. Gozu starts off as a goofily offbeat yakuza story. The buildup is actually less banal and more bizarrely eventful than the romantic drama trappings that set up Audition, and while the payoff is doesn't have the same brutal logic as in the earlier film, it is equal in the visceral way it sears itself into one's brain. There are odd bits and borrowings in Gozu, like the cue-card-reading woman and the yakuza boss' sexual obsession, and the bizarre relationship .totally fantastic great movie. "Meaning" I disagree when those say that this film does not have meaning. I do not know maybe what he is trying to say, but I think it is mainly an artistic statement, it does all mean something somewhat. if you wish to figure it out for yourself, then dont read below ************************************************** he is in hell throughout the movie there are images of buddhist hell and demons and, it seems to have the flow of someone who is in hell. He does not know what is going on around him, he is struggling to figure things out, everything is off...the brother and sister lovers are images of the lovers who made the world i believe (i forget the exact mythology). Finally, a Gozu is a cowheaded Demon that on your afterlife, judges you as a good or bad person... in the end, the person has redeemed himself through his stay in hell and is able to live a better happier life. much like in buddhism its an allegory somewhat on religion, thats how i saw it at least, maybe now the person who enjoyed the film but found no meaning will enjoy it a bit more "You will be rewarded for sitting through the first 2 hours." I have went on a Miike film watching rampage watching (Ichi, Visitor Q, Katakuris, Dead or Alive 1-3, Fudoh, Gozu, Full Metal Yakuza. What I am finding my main criticism of Miike to be is that he often has one or two stand out scenes inserted into an otherwise very poor or boring story. Only Visitor Q and Ichi the Killer were paced well and had interesting content through the entire running times. Miike usually provides something very good in every movie but I end up resenting the wasted time watching the rest of the movie. This is one of those. It starts funny enough with a Yakuza who has gone crazy. He shows this by being paranoid of a "Yakuza Attack Dog" outside who is similar to the dog you see in the Legally Blonde poster. He decides to kill it before it kills the boss and then kills some poor innocent family's pet. Well, since he has become an obvious liability to the Yakuza organization, the boss assigns his brother to take him to a place (I forget the name) where he can be disposed of. He and his brother travel by car but along the way, he mysteriously disappears and strange situations are constantly confronting his brother as he tries to find him again. The problem is that it all unfolds too slowly and his situations really weren't all that interesting. It didn't help that most of the things are similar to scenes in other Miike films. However, the last scene is a solid 5 star perfect treasure that will cause you to grieve it being wasted on an otherwise sub-par film. I will resist temptation to give it away but if you do watch this film and start thinking it is not worth finishing, please trust me that you will want to finish the movie. I will say it is very similar to the scene in Visitor Q where the man is stuck inside the women, but it has a much different reason and conclusion. My conclusion on many of these Miike films is that the standout scenes don't justify them being keepers with their otherwise long uninteresting stories. Without describing it, the end scene is perfectly acted, directed, and has satisfying special effects. It exceeds normal Miike standout moments and is perfection of what I'd like to get out of a movie experience. The question is, is the last scene good enough of a payoff to justify spending the other 2 hours of boredom? Yes, actually it is. "JUST WAIT FOR THE LAST 30 MINUTES" Man, is this a great picture? I bought this DVD and got interested because of the many Takashi Miikes movie reviews I had read and after watching the incredible Visitor Q. I really have an open mind in terms of surreal movies and violence, expecting this to happen because its a Takashi movie. And as surreal as it is, the story is short but told and shown in such a slow pace that sometimes it tends to become somewhat ..i dont want to say it, but a little bit boring (hence the 4 stars)... that, until you get to the last 30 minutes...boy was I in for a surprise. Youll be left with the feeling of "what the hell did i just watched?!" and thats how I start to watch it over and over again, up to almost 10 times. Everytime i see it I find something new (you must pay attention to the little details) but anyhow, Takashi leaves the ending open for your own explanation (in a sort of David Lynch way) you must come up to with you own conclusions; Ive had like 10 conclusions in my mind already, but leaving the same esence in all of them. Also, the special features include various interviews with Takashi and the theme song, which I think its great, and which I use to scare my brother when hes sleeping at night, He and i will never forget "Gozu...gozu...gozu". Buy it, watch it and get your own conclusions. A masterpiece. "gozu....gozu...." This Miike film loses all character depth without the viewer having some prior knowledge of buddhism. That being said...just know beforehand that first of all, this is a yakuza-based film shot in Nagoya, which is definitely not a usual background for yakuza based films. The brother-sister inn-keeper team, incestuous at that, are based on buddhist gods, as is the title of the film, gozu, or cow head. The reincarnation of Ozaki as a woman is also taken from buddhist mythology...a theme which throughout the movie pieces together the very strong homosexual undercurrent. Now, for the general person watching this film just because it is a Miike film....there is enough gore and oddness to keep your attention without the buddhist ties. For instance, the beginning when Ozaki kills the chihuahua, it really throws the viewer for a loop, and it sets the entire movie up for the insanity that is Miike...the flipside of the dog scene is that a series of commercials ran in Japan which set that particular type of dog up as a status symbol, so there was some political humor to that scene. For me personally....i really liked the very last frame of the entire movie, which for me summed up everything i had thought all along...there is a scene at the end that is definitely unforgettable, but the scene i am referring to is the still frame right before the credits roll. A Miike clasic, definitely worth purchasing.