GOZU (Gokudô kyôfu dai-gekijô)
------------------------------
An entire Yakuza clan witnesses the mental breakdown of Ozaki (Sho Aikawa,
"Dead or Alive" trilogy), one of their own, and the clan boss (Renji
Ishibashi, "The Sea Is Watching") orders Ozaki's protege Minami (Hideki
Sone) to get rid of him in the Yakuza dumping ground in Nogoya. On the way
Minami accidentally kills his revered mentor and once there, he loses
Ozaki's body. Minami's search for his Brother leads him through the gates
of hell guarded by the demon "Gozu."
Cult director Takashi Miike ("Audition," "Ichi the Killer") crosses
"Weekend at Bernie's" with "U-Turn" as if he arrived via David Lynch's
"Lost Highway" to come up with his latest bit of boundary-bashing.
Chihuahuas meeting horrific ends, a lasciviously lactating innkeeper, and a
pair of lacy, red crotchless Givenchy panties are all part and parcel of
Miike's horrific yet funny landscape. Screenwriter Sakichi Satô ("Ichi the
Killer," also appearing as a transvestite cafe owner here) references
Buddhist mythology creating obstacles for Minami's path towards professing
true love for his Brother Ozaki.
Minami (a name Miike could easily have chosen as a twisted reference to
Mini Me) arrives in Nogoya in his vintage Mustang and visits a cafe run by
transvestites and frequented by witless locals who repeat the same dialogue
endlessly. When he leaves, he discovers Ozaki's body is missing and
panics. The only local cop is from Hong Kong and not the first to ask 'You
ain't from Nagoya, are ya?' before offering little in the way of help.
Minami is also pseudo-assisted by Nose (Shohei Hino), a character inspired
by Robert Blake's Mystery Man, who leads him back to the cafe where
everyone pretends they've never seen him. Things get weirder at the
Makasazu Inn run by an incestuous sister (Keiko Tomita) and her brother
(producer Harumi Sone). After turning down the sister's frequent offering
of her own breast milk, Minami dreams of the cow-headed Gozu, who drools
semen and licks his face. The next day Minami travels to the junkyard
where the proprietors recall disposing of Ozaki in their crusher and show
the young man his elder's tattooed skin hanging amongst hundreds of others
in dry cleaning bags. Leaving, Minami discovers a woman, Sakiko (Kimika
Yoshino), in his car. She claims to be Ozaki and backs up her claim with
the very intimate secrets Minami shared with his Brother. When 'Ozaki'
seduces Minami, things get really weird.
I haven't even mentioned the bean shop where an American woman recites
Japanese phonetically or the crime boss's sexual habit of inserting soup
ladles where the sun don't shine (this leads to a demise worthy of Edward II)!
"Gozu" is mostly notable for its bizarre (and often beautiful - watch for a
horizon featuring a Ferris wheel and belching smokestack silhouetted
against a blood red sky) imagery and its homosexual theme. Minami is
pointedly proclaimed a virgin and Miike cleverly punctuates his status with
his Yakuza tattoo, which is only an outline, not yet fully formed. The
young Yakuza shies away from the breast (a dripping light fixture overhead
contaminates his meal at one point) until it is proffered by his Brother.
Yet while "Gozu" is stuffed with ideas and full of Miike's gleeful hijinx,
it suffers slogging through a few slow stretches which undercut its impact.
A final "Jules et Jim"-like freeze frame is tossed off with a silly
explanation for the mind-blowing scene which precedes it, the writer and
director probably chortling over their freeze-dried reference.
B-
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