From the twisted minds of Takashi Miike and Sakichi Sato comes this atmospheric and absurd crime comedy about a Yakuza underlings' quest to find his missing colleague. To discuss the plot any further would be an exercise in cruelty to uninitiated viewers, as to watch this film without knowing what'll happen next- or without knowing anything about it at all, for that matter- is an experience like no other. It's a terrifyingly hilarious tour through the subconscious to the darkest recesses of the mind, featuring the Lynchian-Cronenbergian mix of horror and comedy that is the hallmark of Takashi Miike's best work.

Hideki Sone- now known as Yuta Sone- plays the central character, Minami. A low-level Yakuza, Sone's Minami is a perfect conduit for the audience as the film burrows into the dark and strange. He is as disturbed by the spectacle of madness that confronts him as many viewers likely will be. At times the character bears a resemblance to Anthony Perkins' K in Orson Welles' version of 'The Trial', in that everyone around him doesn't appear at all disturbed by the confusing, bizarre scenes that are occurring. Minami is the only one perturbed by the happenings in 'Gozu', and Sone's naturalistic, bewildered performance is pitch perfect for the role.

Show Aikawa plays Minami's missing colleague Ozaki, and he is brilliantly unhinged. A frequent collaborator of Miike's, Aikawa is a very versatile actor with the admirable, enviable ability to give believable, grounded performances as outrageous characters (see him in Miike's 'Dead or Alive' series for proof of this notion). Few roles he's played have been as crazy as Ozaki though, a violent, paranoid Yakuza distrustful of dogs and humans alike. Though he has relatively little screen time, Aikawa leaves a lasting impression; and 'Gozu' may be one of the most memorable movies he's made with Miike.

The rest of the cast is made up of talented performers, with Renji Ishibashi- another frequent collaborator of Miike's- and Keiko Tomita standing out, playing two sick, strange characters. Miike usually gives Ishibashi roles as creepy, twisted people; and his character in 'Gozu'- a ladle-loving sadomasochist- may be the creepiest of the lot. Tomita plays an innkeeper Minami encounters along the way who has a very weird secret and she steals her scenes completely.

Kazunari Tanaka's cinematography is unobtrusively refined and he captures the outlandishly bizarre images in the film with real panache. Sakichi Sato and Miike worked together two years before on 'Ichi the Killer,' and his script for 'Gozu' is terrifically weird and wonderfully sinister- not to mention bizarrely funny. The film doesn't take itself too seriously- though its themes are dark and deep- and his strong screenplay reflects this. Many times, while wondering what the peculiar images signify and just what the hell is going on; most will also be laughing while watching 'Gozu.'

Yes, while most will find humour alongside the macabre in 'Gozu', it is almost a certainty that some will be nothing more or less than disgusted and discouraged at the spectacle of psychological, abstract horror in the film. If you are squeamish or easily perturbed, you should probably avoid it at all costs. If you appreciate the complex, the strange and the dark, however; then 'Gozu' is the film for you.

Let it be known that Gozu won't be for everyone. This recommendation is not for a mass audience in the slightest. This is not Takashi Miike, filmmaker behind the modern cult hits Ichi the Killer and Audition, as you'd might expect. And yet, if you've seen these films, to an ironic extent, you should know what to expect. Gozu is a fabulous act of surrealistic tastelessness, a peering into filmmaker and screenwriter into what can f*** around enough in their psyches to have it blasted back into these characters here. So much can be read into everything that goes on, though I wondered at first if the bulk of film could do better than the first twenty minutes, where a psychotic yakuza- who sees little dogs and cars as specifically "Yakuza killing"- is being taken to be offed by his 'brother'. Whether it's really his brother or not AT FIRST doesn't seem important, until he loses him while stopping at a restaurant. From there on in, we're given a near shaggy-dog story, as if done in the ideals of reaching Lynchian proportions even still with a unique attitude and sense of humor.

If I tried to say too much of what goes on in Gozu one might just stop reading altogether - or be anticipating it, depending on the fan. Miike's style here is stripped down to essentials this time, which is very fitting for the story and characters he's relaying. Not that he's one to skimp on atmosphere, far from it, and if there's one thing he succeeds at in homaging/parodying Lynch it's in the use of sound, and how much varied colors in the lighting can make a difference for the psychological effect. Then again, one would need such a heightened sense of reality, or rather in Gozu as it's sort of not rushed, taking its time with its backwoods gang: the guy with the half-white face dazed out of his gourde; the lactating woman who, forgive me for actually writing this, isn't quite as effective as the lactating woman in Visitor Q; the various owners and hanger-ons at the places Minami, our protagonist, goes around to find his brother. It finally leads him to a woman, who says to him something unbelievable that, somehow, he buys without a second thought (at this point, as Jodorowsky used to say on his film sets I'd wager, 'why not'?) By now someone watching this will have said more than once "alright, this is starting to get weird", but there's more in store on the side of the personal side, and something that happens that, as Miike can only do, actually softens the much more disturbing implications of the shock before the BIGGER shocker.

Gozu is somehow, through all of its deliberate sideshow irregulars, ominous signs and the little knife-stabs of circumstance encountered by the wandering yakuza, very funny throughout because of something elemental Miike knows about this: it's the only way it could work, if it does at all. Other reviewers have and will continue to argue the pointlessness, the meandering, and how it goes too far over the line of decency in films. The first two can be arguable, but the last part is what Miike works best at here: take the audience over the line, and still say "it's only a joke." I'd have to imagine that, if only out of the little behavioral bits in Gozu, that Miike was behind the camera laughing silly. He means for it to be a serious presentation, to be sure, but what are we to make of a brother and sister who can conjure up dead spirits by one constantly thwacking the other with a fly swatter and chanting incantations? Or a classic dream involving a cow head and some sexual jealousy? The opening to the movie, in a sense, sets up the first litmus test, as some might want to turn it off right away. Yet its the nature of a surrealist, as Miike goes for here, to get away with vicious, wicked pranks that get the audience in an uproar, and since its never done too draggingly, and the thinking gets richer in the nature of the characters as it goes along, it's a successful work.

It's maddening and about societal madness, with enough U-turns and carefully composed visuals for two Miike movies, and it's one of the true like it or don't films of the past several years. For me, Miike and his writer Saito have not-so-subtly hit it out of the park.

Takashi Miike is a very strange man - I think there's sufficient evidence of that fact that I need not justify it further. So if I tell you that GOZU is probably Miike's weirdest film to date, you will know that we are talking some world-class oddity. Billed as a "Yakuza Horror" film, which is a label that just about fits if you consider that Japanese horror films have always shown a very different sensibility than Hollywood films (Japanese horror is generally of a quite intangible nature, about the horror of the unknown and the incomprehensible - not so much about the big scary monsters). GOZU is interesting in that the "horror" of it comes almost entirely from the way it is filmed - the camera work, the editing and the sound effects all come together to create a sense of foreboding and fear that for the most part is not at all born out by the actual events in the film. Miike is probably making the point that most horror films are just exercises in film-making technique these days, rather than presenting truly frightening content. Or perhaps he just fancied a way to make his latest Yakuza film a little bit different :)

Miike is definitely one of the most creative film-makers working in the world today - quite possibly *the* most, given his insanely prolific output and the fact that almost every film he makes manages to be unique and memorable. Doing that with one film a year would be an impressive feat, and Miike gives us at least 3-4 such films every year. GOZU shows him on fine creative form once more, turning a story that probably isn't all that interesting into a surreal, dreamlike experience. The plot itself is very minimal, and largely irrelevant for most of the 125 minute running time. Basically, a Yakuza is told to take his yakuza-brother (Sho Aikawa) to an out of the way part of Japan and get rid of him, as he been showing signs of going a bit loopy. However, before he can carry out his orders, Aikawa disappears - and most of the rest of the film is concerned with Minami's efforts to find him. But that description really sells short the content of the film, which is really about the strange characters he encounters and the even stranger experiences that he has.

Going into more detail about what happens wouldn't add a lot to this review, so I won't. Just be prepared to "go with the flow" and see what the film has to offer, rather than expecting anything specific from it. Don't expect a nice neat resolution at the end, either, 'cause you'll definitely be disappointed. Miike's films are often films that need to be seen in just the right mood to be enjoyed, and I'm glad I made the decision that my mood wasn't right when I started watching GOZU 6 months ago. The film sat there waiting for me until this weekend, when I figured the time was as good as it was going to get, and it paid off in spades :)

Miike's films often suffer on repeat viewings, and I am pretty sure this will be true of GOZU - at over 2 hours it is definitely too long, and there are sure to be scenes that are a bit of a chore to sit through when you know what's coming. I couldn't say which scenes they are from a first viewing though, so there's nothing that's truly redundant in there, and I hope that the US distributors that recently acquired the film will remember that their viewers would rather make the decision themselves about any scenes that weren't needed. i.e. uncut, please!