Takashi Miike is a freak. Ichi the Killer is probably his most popular film (in America at least). I really can’t stand Ichi, but GOZU is a pretty nice flick.

The thing that I like most about this movie is that it makes no sense. Sometimes weird things happen in a movie and when they get explained it ruins the movie for you. This is a film that has so many screwed up events that maybe it’s better that they don’t explain what’s going on. You don’t even try to figure it out in your head. You just say “OK this is f’ed up. That’s all there is to it” and you’re ok with that. Not a lot of movies get away with that.

Miike is kind of like Chan Wook Park or Stanley Kubrick in the respect that every movie he makes ends up being a horror movie. Don’t get me wrong, he’s nowhere near as talented as those other directors, but he shares in their fascination of disturbing their audience. Where Miike fails is he doesn’t know how to scare you with nothing. Sometimes it’s the things we don’t see that are the scariest. Miike tends to force everything.

Don’t get me wrong, his films are generally very light and never to be taken seriously, so I understand that he’s not really trying that hard. I’d really like for him to make one serious movie, though, just so we can see how talented he is. I think he’s overrated and underrated at the same time. He gets a lot more praise than he deserves, but he doesn’t deserve all the hate he gets, either.