Wow, it's been forever since I've posted a thread in movie talk. I attribute that mostly to my heavy school load, family responsibilities, and undying crack habit. But anyway, I just watched Izo last night. Never has a movie been this much of a CHORE to get through. I have this thing where I never stop a movie once I've started it. I like to think that I do enough research into a movie beforehand to get a pretty good idea what I'm getting myself into. Not so with Izo.

I've struggled through a few of Miike's other movies. Audition was pretty brilliant (I even bought it). Ichi the Killer was entertaining enough, and Visitor Q was... well, let's just say I got through it unharmed (physically. not so sure about mentally). When I first saw the trailer for Izo, I thought to myself "Great! A violent Miike film with Samurais and time travel! And it's even got Beat Takeshi to boot!"

So, my friend - who works at Blockbuster and gets rentals weeks before they come out - brought it over last night and we watched it. For over two whole hours we were bombarded with what can only be described as violent child rape in cinema form. To call the plot nonsensical would be an insult to nonsense. It had something to do with a pissed off ghost samurai and... actually that's about all I can come up with - pretty sad considering the movie was two hours long, was heavy in dialogue, and had about 30 different characters.

It was basically a rapid-fire montage of fight sequences with the main character, Izo, and a random person or group of people, including business men, a bride and groom, little children, Bob Sapp, and even Izo's own mother. And that was it. Absurd confusing fight scene after absurd confusing fight scene. Sounds cool in theory, but trust me, after about twenty minutes of it, it begins to wear thin. Extremely thin. Like an Olsen twin in a trash compactor thin. (see what I did there?) And after that twenty minutes, there are still a hundred more to go.

Oh, I left out one thing - mixed into things are about half a dozen musical numbers with a guy singing and playing a guitar. I use "singing" and "playing" and "guy" quite loosely. This was some heinous stuff. It sounded like something written AND performed by a mentally retarded six-year-old. The fourth time this guy started shrieking out his mongoloidian war cries, I almost made the decision to turn off the movie. But like I said, I have to finish what I begin. Though I'm starting to rethink that philosophy.

In conclusion, Izo was a great movie that I highly recommend to everyone!

I don't need a warning to tell me to avoid a Miike film at ALL costs.. but it was interesting to hear it from a perspective of someone who enjoyed his previous "works."

Wow, that sounds awesome. I will make sure to at least rent it. Thanks for the heads up!

I've only seen Audition (very recently) but I've heard that Miike films can be a hit or miss (benefits of co-workers I guess).

My next stop is Visitor Q.

Bring an umbrella