Gozu
Japan | Japanese, English subtitles
2003 | 130 Minutes
Director: Takashi Miike
Cast: Show Aikawa, Hideki Sone
There are crazy films, and then there’s Gozu – a film regarded as a cult classic and one I was looking forward to revisiting at Fantasia festival this year.
As Fantasia festival is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary this year, there are several retro screenings of older films that in one way or another, have helped shaped the festival into what it proudly is today. It makes perfect sense, to screen the films of Takashi Miike, who has has so many of his films play at the festival over the years – few films fit Fantasia better the absurdity that is Gozu.
See Also: Tunnels : Sun In The Dark at Fantasia Festival
Following a shocking incident before the eyes of his boss and crew, mid-level yakuza Ozaki has become a liability. His own underling, Minami, is assigned the onerous task of delivering the unsuspecting and clearly quite crazy Ozaki to a garbage dump in Nagoya, where he’ll be dealt with, so to speak.
The problem is both simplified and complicated while en route when Ozaki is killed suddenly, and entirely by accident. After trying to find a phone with which to inform his superiors, Minami discovers that Ozaki’s cadaver has disappeared from the backseat of the car. Minami’s search for the missing body quickly becomes an odyssey into deeply disturbing absurdity.
From the early and infamous scene involving the Yakuza attack chihuahua, the stage is set for one of the most incredibly fun and off the rocker gangster movies ever made. Each new character that is introduced is more nutty than the previous as the film grows more and more insane. Soon, what started out as a sort of Weekend At Bernie’s type comedic adventure, unravels into something David Lynch would have been proud to have created.
There are plenty of what the fuck did I just watch moments, as well as grotesque moments, some violence but mostly gross-out scenes that really make you question your sanity. Gozu sure does batter the senses and push every possible limit in true Takashi Miike style.
Sometimes funny, sometimes rife with explicit body horror and of course some sexual perversion thrown in because why not. Why wouldn’t there be a scene involving a man with a spoon up his ass, humping a young lady while on a phone call. And furthermore, why wouldn’t this then become a reoccurring theme throughout the film. Gozu doesn’t offer any reason why, it just is what it is.
Much like the reason why people slow down to get a proper peek at a traffic accident on a highway, Gozu intricoes its audience to keep watching despite showing its audience so the weirdest set pieces imaginable – and somehow still manages to be engrossing, and even more strangely, still funny. As obscured as the whole package is, Gozu remains a force that people still talk about and recommend to theirs friends nearly a quarter-century after its inception.
“Have you seen Gozu?” “No?? Oh man, you’ve got to see it!” – that sort of thing.
However, a lot of the film seems to be about making nasty scenes for the sheer sake of making vile set pieces. I’ll try not to give too much away but there’s a strong chance of spoilers from here on in. Tread carefully. We never really find out what happens to the missing corpse nor do we ever get an explanation as to why the slain reappears as a women who then gives birth to the adult sized murder victim in a scene that obviously influenced a similar one in Alex Garland’s 2022 film Men.
Gozu doesn’t really ask any questions and it sure doesn’t offer any answers either.
As best as I can understand it, Minami suffers a sort of mental breakdown perhaps through guilt at having ended the life of his Yakuza brother Ozaki, and is sent on a spiral of lunacy while trying to come to terms with what he has done. Its either that or drugs. Minami is on serious drugs. Hell, why not both?
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It had been at least twenty years since I had seen this film, and I admit that my memory of it had become a little fuzzy over time. In retrospect, more than a little fuzzy as I had practically no memory of a lot of the set pieces involved in this video nasty. I knew it was heavy on the weird – its a Takashi Miike film. And I knew it was considered a shocking piece of body horror, but it seems I had forgotten just how batshit crazy Gozu truly is.
In short, Gozu is fucking insane!
