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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 "Cow Demons Are Awesome" Like most of Takashi Miike's films, 'Gozu' is tough to watch. There are scenes here that are just hard to look at without scrunching your face up in shock/disguist(i.e. the dog at the beginning of the film, the lactation scene, the adult birth at the end, etc.). The film is slowly paced with sparse dialogue, filled with strange imagery, random scenes and oddly disturbing characters(i.e. ladle man, and the possibly retarded guy who keeps talking about the weather). In a nutshell, and for lack of better words, this film is truly repugnant. I'm not really sure how to explain the film. I think it is better to go in knowing nothing and be amazed and/or disturbed by the many goings ons. This is not for the weak stomached. This is not for action movie lovers. I really don't know who this movie is for. Miike is an amazing director. His films need to be seen because he is doing things today that no filmmaker anywhere in the world would even think of doing and he's doing them in a way that no one could or would even dare to. He's pushing the envelope in a time when very few filmmakers are. And 'Gozu' is probably the furthest he's ever pushed it. "one of the best movies ever" i absolutely loved this film. without destroying the story let me tell you if one were to classify this film it would be a cross between a gangster, horror thriller, suspense mystery, and a weird twisted version of love. The japaneese are twisted and boy is this movie its gots some weird but intellectual humor constantly throughout the film. Its a little slow but it adds to the strangness of the world the main character is in. Every scene is so perfectly scripted in such an odd but intriguing way. The main character searches for his brother which may sound kinda boring but its bizarre, everyone he meets and everywhere he goes is off, theres something just not right about it all. Its like he's stuck in a dream and he is the only one and all he wants to do is find his lost brother! Throw in the dreamlike paranoia with the artistic creative side of this directors works and you got GOZU! gozu meaning cow head's got some real memorable scenes that yourll be feeling sick to or laughing about or just plain remembering at random points in the day for a long time. "Deliciously surreal and strange, but lacking a thread" Not having seen anything but "Gozu" in what I've read is an illustrious catalogue by filmmaker Takasha Miike, I can't judge him solely on the strengths and weaknesses of this film in particular. It was a wild, riveting ride, with some unforgettable scenes (particularly the opening, in which a slowly deteriorating member of the Yakuza crime family murders a puppy in the belief that it is a "Yakuza attack dog", and of course the queasy "rebirth" scene of that very same gangster at the film's conclusion), and at times reminds one of a Beckett play (the man with the pigment problem reclining in the field with a magazine, the innkeeper whipping her husband to generate "spirits", etc) a Lynch film (characters changing identities, gender bending, scenes of the most cartoonish sexual debauchery), and Monty Python all at once. The problem, though, is that none of this means anything. Unlike Lynch or Beckett we can find no discernible meaning, not even with the most circumspect viewing, simply because there is none. While I love surrealism, a movie does need to be more than the sum of it's parts, and "Gozu", for all it's nail biting scenes and undeniably menacing atmosphere, is only that. A member of the Yakuza family named Ozaki is killed as he is about to commit a random of madness by Minami, a friend indebted to him forever for saving his life. From here everything goes wacky, and not in an unpleasant manner entirely: his corpse disappears from Minami's car. There are strong elements of Hitchcock here, too, but from this point in the film nothing really makes any sense, even in retrospect. We see a host of bizarre and stomach churning things: an inkeeper who likes to squirt her own milk rather than buy it from the store, handicapped Japanese people screaming about whether the day was hot or not. Meanwhile our protagonist is taken on a journey that is imaginative and surreal but, in the end, all smoke. In the film essay Miike cites the influence, which is obvious anyway, of David Lynch films like "Lost Highway" and "Mulholland Drive". There are definitely similarities. In those movies, though, as strange and dreamlike as they are, there is an ultimate explanation, or host of explanations, for why things have happened this way. Not all Lynch films have an "ultimate point", but those two did, and "Gozu" most certainly does not. This is more than enjoyable, don't get me wrong; in fact, for people of certain tastes, including my own, I'd recommend it. But don't expect a puzzle or anything to think extensively about. "A bit boring, actually" Self-styled bad boy auteur Takashi Miike has made some pretty bizarre additions to his canon during the past few years. Anyone who thought they had him pegged as an indie schlock-pimp would've been thrown by the likes of Zebraman (offbeat family comedy) and Chakushin Ari, aka One Missed Call (a Ring-esque horror that was about as conventional as they come). However, even by these standards, Gozu is a bit of an odd tangent - could this be the first truly BORING Miike film? Short answer: yes. Though it's bookended by some spectacularly gross sequences (if you thought Audition's use of cheese wire was excrutiating enough, you should see what Miike can do with a ladle), the majority of Gozu is devoted to a painfully drawn-out shaggy dog story of sorts. The plot - for what it's worth - centers around hapless yakuza Minami, who is charged with taking his "brother", Ozaki, to Nagoya to have him bumped-off. When the latter mysteriously disappears, Minami trawls through a beaten-up rural wasteland to find him, alternately helped and hindered by a slew of weirdo yokels (among them, an ever-lactating inn hostess, a self-styled albino and a failed psychic). There are shades of David Lynch and oddball British TV series The League of Gentlemen at play here, but Gozu lacks the focus of either - its occasional jokes hang in the air for minutes on end, never quite finding a punchline. Over the course of its tortuous two-hours-plus running time, Miike barely musters half an hour of decent material - though, to be fair, when he finally lets rip with his gross-out finale, you'll almost be willing to forgive him for the torpor that preceded it. Almost. "cow demons, lactating inkeepers, and man birthing... oh my!" if a japanese production company re-made "Doom Generation" and it was directed by Satan himself, it would be Gozu. this movie should come with a warning label: "danger - do not operate near pacemakers." As an avid fan of bizarre/trash cinema, I can't believe that I was actually unprepared for this movie. From the disturbingly hilarious "yakuza attack dog" smashing at the opening of the film, to the gut wrenching, and wholly disturbing "man birthing" scene at its finale, I can say with certainty that neither I nor the 4 individuals (one of whom actually vomited during the birthing) had ever seen anything even remotely like this movie. the plot is so disjointed that halfway through the movie I just stopped following the subtitles. I'm not even going to try to explain character relationships... all you really need to know if that the guy in the trenchcoat is looking for his brother who he was driving to northern japan to get offed by fellow yakuza members. after that it's all a blur of self milking, violent behavior and something about glutinous rice. I found it hard to believe that the most benign part of the movie is the cow-headed demon that graces the DVD's cover. there's not an astounding amount I can say about this film that would make any sense at all, or be fit to be read by the general public. If you watch a lot of the more left field japanese movies, you'll be able to appreciate this film, just don't expect anything serious out of the cow-headed demon. all he does is slobber all over the main character's face... then it switches over to some bizarre sibling lust shot that I'm still trying to make sense of. additionally, if you have any knowledge of modern japanese culture, you'll be able to see the humor and bizarrity in the situations this movie creates for the main character... if you have no prior knowledge of japanese culture whatsoever, you might just spend the whole 2+ hours scratching your head and muttering profanity under your breath as you give yourself a migraine trying to sort everything out - unless you're one of the people who sites "Pink Flamingos" as your favorite movie, in which case you'll just get a kick out of everybody acting like a lunatic and doing inexplicable, and disgusting things. Any movie that can make "Love and a .45" and "Doom generation" look like "My Dog Skip" is OK in my book. this isn't the kind of film you rave about and tell your friends they should watch unless you have the kind of friendship where recommending movies that make angels cry isn't a relationship-killer.... On a personal note, after the end of the film I just coulden't look at the gravy ladle in my kitchen for a while without getting a little sick and thinking about corn (well... I THINK it was corn. I'm still not sure). watch this film on a partially empty stomach.