Takashi Miike

I just saw Visitor Q, and was pretty impressed. I thought it was quite fascinating and interesting, also quite brave and surprisingly touching.

Ichi is overrated, as mentioned already, but Miike's made a lot of other films, however, as mentioned already, many of which are much better than Ichi, such as Bird People, as mentioned already.

...Just wanted to reiterate (and form a compound sentence).

Happiness of the Katakuri's was quite simply unique. It was a very interesting film with a story that no one other than Miike could do. The claymation was seamlessly integrated.

Anyone catch Miike's episode of Masters of Horror on Showtime? 😉 Trick question actually. Showtime pulled 'Imprint' from the lineup. I finally rented it on Netflix. shock fear ......................Suffice to say, it's one of the creepiest things I've ever seen. I actually had to leave the room during one part. It wasn't really a great story, but the lengths he went to............fear

Check out Izo sometime. It's a nice existensial trip with lots of killing.

Have you seen the original Korean film The Quiet Family, that Happiness is based on?

Well let's see I've only seen 3 films by Miike ; "Audition", "Ichi The Killer" and "Sukiyaki Western Django"... I hated all three.

Honestly I really can't say that I found anything memorable about any of them. Usually I try my best to take apart a movie and try to find anything I like about it : i.e camera work, script, direction, acting music, etc.

These three movies were really boring and dull, IMO.

Ichi the Killer I found entertaining at first, but it bored me with bad acting and mindless violence. Shit characters... I guess the Manga is to blame.

The Audition was a horrible disappointment to me. After hearing so many good things about it, I figured it at least had to be descent. The thing I hate most was that it seemed that Miike forced the movie to be "disturbing" and "over the-top". I didn't really see anything that appauling. I hate it when movies force things (and fail anyways) and this movie was pretty pretentious to me.

Sukiyaki Western Django was just plain-out terrible, in every way. Instead of being a homage it was a disgrace. I seriously had to FORCE myself to sit through this movie. Bad acting, EXTREMELY bad dialog, hodge-podge script. Oh man this was the worst movie I've seen in a long, long time.

Needless to say, I am not a fan of Miike. Is this the best he has to offer?

I recommend trying his less surreal type films, see Rainy Dog, and Ley Lines. If you don't like these two then you should just give up watching anymore of his films.

Umkay wench-face, I'll 'prolly check those out. If they suck arse, you know who I'm coming after : P.

BTW : Which films of the 3 that I mentioned do you consider "Surreal"?

The last two, compared to his other films they are quite out there. Films Gozu and so on are more surreal though.