Sadly Over-hyped

One of my all time favorites.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Imagine a completely messed up family where the daughter is a prostitute who even has sex with her own father, the father himself is sexually repressed after having been severely humiliated, the son is being bullied every day and resorts to extreme violence against his mother in order to release his built up aggression, and the mother turns into a heroin addict in order to deal with the physical and emotional pain... At first glance, one can assume that there are no redeeming features about this family and absolutely no way to improve their situation. Suddenly, a strange man (obviously a metaphor for family values) comes into their lives by hitting the father with a big rock on the head and then bringing him home for dinner. The events that follow involve necrophilia, murder and other acts of violence and bizarre sexual interactions. Even though the movie is somewhat extreme, it never feels over the top to me, since the family is already so messed up that the way to fix the situation is definitely beyond counseling... And, in the end, the film turns even somewhat sentimental. I must say that this is a serious film presented in a rather simplified format, which makes it accessible to a larger audience. It delivers a message regarding the importance of family values and is definitely worth watching. Just be open minded.

Meet the Yamazakis: father Kiyoshi, a failed TV reporter, is diddling his sexy prostitute daughter Miki; disturbed teenage son Takuya is being bullied at school, but dishes out the violence at home; and mum Keiko is turning tricks to fund her drugs habit.Into this extremely dysfunctional family unit comes a strange visitor who brings peace and harmony to the household through the power of lactation.Even by Takashi Miike's standards, Visitor Q is one hell of a weird ride, and is undoubtedly the director's most outrageous work to date (and considering this is the same guy who gave us Ichi the Killer, Gozu and Audition, that is really saying something!).From its opening sex scene between Kiyoshi and Miki (which narrowly avoids being overly explicit thanks to some judicious blurring) to the breast milk drenched finalé, this deranged shot on DV feature presents enough sex and violence for the most depraved of film fans, and even manages to answer that age old question "What should I do if I get my penis trapped inside a dead woman's vagina?'.Exactly what message Miike is trying to convey with this film is anyone's guess, but for wall-to-wall deviancy, you'll be hard pushed to find anything better (or should that be 'worse'?).I give Visitor Q a rating of 8 out of 10 purely for it's ability to render even the most jaded of viewers speechless.

I don't like all of Takashi Miike's movies but I found this one to be pretty enjoyable, despite it being quite an odd movie. But well, that's just Miike's thing, so be sure what to expect before watching this.Miike's handles all kind of different styles and themes and blends them together into this movie. It has lots of crazy characters, a bunch of violence and also a large amount of sex and nudity this time. This gets all combined with its absurd story, that strengthens all of its other themes, making this an odd as well as an unique viewing experience.Despite all of its heavy visual themes, with violence and sex, the movie is above all things also strangely entertaining to watch. Miike puts in his trademark comedy, that often makes this movie a light and pleasant watch, despite all of the heavy things that are happening on screen. He knows to put in the comical touches at the right place and at the right time.Of course it often is a hard movie to understand and follow because of all of its unusual themes and not so every-day common characters. It therefore also really isn't a movie for just everybody but if you are willing to give this movie a change with a clear mind and don't try to think too much about it all, until afterward when things start to seem to make more sense to you, changes are you might end up enjoy watching this movie.It's a movie that gets better as it progresses. At first it all is one big blur to you but later on things start to clear up more and you're able to understand some of it's themes and intentions of Miike. Everything starts to come together to you and suddenly what normally seems strange now seems perfectly normally, once you're drawn into Miike's world.A movie worth giving a go.7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Visitor Q opens with the title card "Have you ever done it with your Dad?" Through a digital camcorder, we watch a hot young prostitute as she seduces her father into having sex with her. Her father is the one with the camera, filming the scene for a documentary on Japanese youths. Eventually it seems the father is letting himself be seduced, and she tells him the price. They have sex, the father is a preemie, and the disappointed daughter reacts by doubling the price. The father then realizes the camera has been on throughout.Then another title card appears: "Have you ever been hit on the head?" What follows is a single shot, the content of which one could reasonably guess based on the title of the scene.Among all the connecting vignettes, twisted and vomit-provoking as can be, there is one which very telling, but by this time, the viewer is so taken aback that finding significance in what one is seeing seems so bewildering. But the scene involves the father in one of his many frantic situations with his camera, running off to the camera about how he is supposed to feel. He doesn't know how. And neither do we.Miike is known for his go-for-broke gross-out violence, blood, guts and gore, not to mention all the perverse sexuality we tend to see in his countless films, and many of them he has churned out as simply as just a fun job. When asked why, for instance, in Dead or Alive, a character produces a bazooka from thin air, Miike laughed and said "Why shouldn't he have a bazooka? Don't all guys fantasize about bazookas?" With this direct-to-video shocker, the viewer realizes how aware he is of the effect of his content, and in so being, never indicates to us what we are supposed to feel. Most movies, most TV shows, certainly the news and most other forms of media output indicate through a basic film language what we are morally supposed to be feeling. Miike doesn't find this social phenomenon so easily done, and builds this $60,000 cult film around those aforementioned forms of media, exploiting the production's conception as an exercise in exploring the benefits of low-cost Digital Video to replicate documentary footage and home movies, which lathers the film with a sense of realism, which contrasts wildly with the freakishly bizarre scenes and pitch-black humor. He keeps this tense juxtaposition consistent and never allows us for a moment to sit back and relax, to shift into auto-pilot.As a result, watching Visitor Q becomes this grotesque experience throughout which we realize how unaccustomed we are to human perversions. Am I repulsed, exasperated, laughing, compassionate, overwrought and bewildered? I am never signaled. You're on your own. And consequently, I felt all of those things.