Gozu

Japan, 2003
original title: Gokudô kyôfu dai-gekijô

Director: Takashi Miike
Starring: Sho Aikawa, Kimika Yoshino
IMDB: 7/10

From the acclaimed director, Takashi Miike, comes a Yakuza/horror film to shock and amaze audiences everywhere!

When Minami is sent to kill his mentor, Ozaki, who is in the midst of a nervous breakdown, he embarks on a journey of unexplained natural phenomenon that only the director of such films as Audition, Dead or Alive and Ichi the Killer can provide in this surreal Lynchian/Cronenberg-like odyssey!

While tagged as a yakuza/horror tale, anyone with a twisted sense of humour will also find this at times irreverently funny, as evidenced by the infamous Chihuahua incident at the start of the film. You've just gotta love Miike's complete disregard for PC film-making! His sense of black comedy has come to be something of a trademark.

After setting the scene, the movie becomes a yakuza road trip interspersed with bouts of perversity, weirdness and violence. Until the final act that is, when Miike takes a sharp turn into Bat Country and proceedings get REALLY weird. You sure won't have seen anything quite like this before!

What it all means I'll leave to you to figure out.

Highly recommended.

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