Filmmaker Takashi Miike enjoys cult status in his native Japan and made Time magazine's Top 10 list of non-Hollywood directors in 1998, but outside of the underground-film world, the director is still relatively unknown in the United States. That situation is going to change, however, when Pathfinder Pictures brings Miike's surreal yakuza ("gangster") movie "Gozu" to American screens this June.
I attended an advance screening of "Gozu," (the word means "cow-headed demon") as part of the Visual Communications Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film and Video Festival. It attracted a colorful mix of art-film aficionados, gangster-movie buffs and gorehounds who knew the director's reputation for horrific romance ("Audition"), ultraviolence ("Ichi the Killer"), hyper action ("Dead or Alive") and taboo subject matter ("Visitor Q"). Since 1991, the prolific Miike has directed 60 films, but in an e-mailed message to the audience he said "Gozu" is the closest to his heart, adding that he hoped we wouldn't hate him after seeing it.
"Gozu" begins like a typical yakuza film, with stock characters that include a big boss and his sleazy underlings. However, the mood quickly turns horrific when senior gangster Ozaki is revealed to be psychotic. Declaring that a chihuahua is in actuality a "yakuza attack dog," he smashes the tiny pet into a restaurant window before stomping on it for good measure. When Ozaki's underling, Minami, is charged with killing his demented boss and then loses the corpse, the film takes a surreal, David Lynch-esque turn. Cross-dressing waiters, dysfunctional siblings who operate a motel and the titular horror are introduced, as is a beautiful woman who claims to be the supposedly dead man. The lower-level gangster is torn between his loyalty to the gang, his relationship with the boss and his attraction to Ozaki's curvy new body. The scenario is mind-boggling, and Miike handles it with a dry and sick sense of humor.
You will probably either love "Gozu" or hate it (or, as the director fears, hate him), but you will not forget it. More polished and less uneven than many of his other works -- some of which are made specifically for video distribution -- it's a great introduction to the twisted world of Miike. Film fans who miss the raw energy of early David Cronenberg, John Waters and Sam Raimi should get a kick out of it. Also worth checking out is a 400-page, heavily illustrated book out from Fab Press by Japanese film buff Tom Mes, Agitator: The Cinema of Takashi Miike.
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