This is the start of hopefully many more movie reviews, this one just happens to have two movies, I don’t know how often this’ll come out, but ideally there will be at least two a month, so one every two weeks. I will try to aim higher, but if I think I’ll be busy I’ll probably be a lower count. anyway, Enjoy
These are both films directed by Miike Takashi. He’s probably one of my favorite directors of all times.
I’ll start off with the film The Happiness of the Katakuris, I watched a rather poor quality of the film, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying it. In some respects it’s a classic Miike Takashi film, it’s weird, disturbing, and yet quite funny at the same time, but, and maybe I’m not a seasoned enough fan, I think it’s still wonderfully unique. The idea of hope in a hopeless situation, the dancing zombies. My favorite part of that movie was the Sumo and the little girl, “we haven’t seen the little girl since this morning,” my first thought was ‘haha XD watch her be stuck under the dead sumo’ and then… O.O OMG… I LOVE YOU MIIKE!! Because that wasn’t possible for a film to be that perfect. But think about it, it’s sick, the sumo is dead, and the girl died under his weight… but the way Miike plays out the scene you can’t help but laugh, it’s a terrible thing to laugh at, but even know I still can’t help but chuckle when I think of it. Then when they’re trying to get the sumo out of the window and everyone’s complaining how heavy he is, and then some one is like “well, he’s dead anyway,” and they just drop him, and of course the guy at the bottom has no clue they decided to drop him. I kind of wanted the sumo to fall on the guy, but I think the sumo had already squished enough people for that scene. Though every time they start singing I just never know what to think. When it first happened I kinda died a little, in the sense that I thought someone had destroyed the film and replaced it with something else. But they were the same characters… and very quickly into the scene I went from shock to absoloute adoration for the “musical numbers”. Especially when they go all Karaoke style, I really wish I could’ve read kanji, just so I could sing that ridiculous song with them. I think the whole scene with the daughter dancing with the con artist while the little girl just sits there looking absolutely bored is just awesome. If there’s anything I can relate to in that movie, it’s gotta be the boredom of the little girl. Her expression is priceless. Another scene that I love is how the father at the end gives this big dramatic, almost musical-like sacrifice was awesome. Especially at the end when he’s got his hands ready to be taken to jail and they just walk right through him. The lava scene was ridiculous, I loved it, it was just so incredibly ridiculous.I think what really threw me was the fact I was going into this not knowing the genre, and since the last movie of Miike Takashi’s was Audition, I figured it’d be something to that effect.Needless to say the claymation at the beginning really threw me for a loop. I did at one point pause the movie to figure out the genre of the film, and once I did all of the pieces were put together and I stopped trying to figure out the horror of the film and just went for the psychotic roller coaster ride. This movie should be offensive, but Miike really knows how to make even the worst things in like funny. Despite this being crazy, musical, and hilarious, it’s definitely not for kids. I would say 17+ simply because there are some incredibly racy scenes in the film.
Visitor Q
Eh… what can I say… it’s… disturbing and provocative to say the least, the movie itself is about an hour and 20 minutes (roughly). I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure I could even stomach the movie. I did pause at times, it’s there to disturb. For quite a ways into the movie I didn’t really understand what was the point of it all. I simply thought it was to freak people out, to scare them, make them nauseous or something along the lines of making the audience react in a rather potent way. But probably an hour into the film it went to horrible disturbing to hilarious. So the hour was worth it. It’s not for the faint of… anything? It’s not for many people. It’s a matter of not eating before you see it, and being able to just roll with the humor without diving into it too deeply. Because I think if you over think this movie while it’s playing, you will get sick. But It wasn’t sooo bad, it’s just taboo after taboo after taboo. But the Visitor is great. I think if you don’t mind really disturbing things, this could actually be quite an enjoyable view. The end with the mother’s milk situation and the father’s…. stuck in a dead corpse situation is hilarious… but not for the faint of heart. Other than that, the film is clearly meant to make its views uncomfortable and I thought it was a great film… 18+ for… nudity… sex scenes and… yeah… pretty much, I’d say violence, too, but it fails in comparison to the other issues of the film. I like how it addresses certain taboos and the role of a Japanese family and the troubles of it. It’s not realistic in the least, but it does make you think. I loved it. I’m not sure I could stomach to watch it again though… hilarious… but like I just said..
Recent Comments