(2003)
Overall: GOOD
In typical Takashi Miike fashion, his wackadoo yakuza comedy nightmare Gozu, (Gokudō kyōfu dai-gekijō: Gozu, Yakuza Horror Theatre: Cow's Head), is outrageously incoherent and perverse, no more or less for the faint of heart than any other work in his filmography. Reuniting with Ichi the Killer screenwriter Sakichi Sato, it is littered with hilariously odd, psycho-sexual details like a mob boss who can only get it up if he literally has a golden spoon shoved up his ass, an elderly female hotel owner who is all too eager to lactate for costumers while whipping her dim-witted brother into being a spiritual medium, and, (in a WTF/midnight movie finale for the books), a protagonist whose brother turns into a woman that gives birth to a full-grown version of himself when they have incestual sex with each other. There is also a guy with a giant cow head who shows up in dreams. Fun! As one could logically guess, MAKING any logical guess as to what any of this means is a futile exercise. While much of it is too juvenile in its grossness to take seriously, (even in a arthouse, shock cinema sense), and it has an uncharacteristically meandering pace, it is still a wild freakshow that will make most viewers run screaming to the hills while simultaneously delighting the connoisseur of bad taste.
(2003)
Overall: MEH
Filmmaker Takashi Miike's take on technological J-horror comes after some of the more prominent films that unmistakably inspired it, to the point where this one can be seen as at least partially derivative. One Missed Call, (Chakushin ari), makes people's cell phones the specific tool for a supernatural curse transference which is just as silly/clever of an idea as VHS tapes in Hideo Nakata's Ringu or the internet in Kiyoshi Kurosawa Kairo. The problem lies in how the plot unfolds though, meaning predictable and uninspired. As the characters try and survive the long, black-haired, vengeful spirit that is after them who will strike at a specific time, they go through all of the standard blunders of denial, investigation, "solving" the mystery when there is still thirty-minutes left in the running time, and of course getting duped by a twist at the last possible moment. On the plus side, Miike takes a restrained approach to the material as there is little humor or incidental music and it largely has the calm and meticulous pacing that is purposely lacking in the director's more ultra-violent and jacked-up works.
(2004)
Dir - Park Chan-wook/Takashi Miike/Fruit Chan
Overall: GOOD
A sequel to the identically structured 2002 movie Three except utilizing comparatively more known directors from just as many different countries, Three...Extremes, (Utsukushī Yoru, Zankokuna, Asa, Sseuli, Monseuteo), is a typical anthology horror offering in the fact that each of its individual stories are inconsistent in quality. Thankfully though, they are all interesting at worst and memorable at best. "The Box" from the highly prolific and frequently over the top Takashi Miike is the most surreal, unorthodox, and easily the least commercial entry. It is also too slow for it's own pretentious good, a similar pacing issue that also befalls Fruit Chan's otherwise calmly disturbing "Dumplings", (which would be expanded upon to feature length as Chan's very next film). The real standout is Oldboy director Park Chan-wook's "Cut" which dips its toes into torture porn, yet manages to have a sufficient sense of humor about itself at the same time. It is also the most elaborately staged and features an amusingly deranged performance from South Korean actor Im Won-hee. None of the segments could be considered a waste though, making this a strong contender for the century's best anthology horror offering from the East thus far.
No comments:
Post a Comment