Minnâ-yatteruka!

One of the stupidest, most bizarre, and straight up perverted movies I've seen in a long time, but it was friggin' funny as hell. If you can handle 'stupid funny' then this movie is definitely enjoyable. Loosely organized around the fact that this perverted guy wants to score badly.... so he goes off and tries many different means to accomplish this task. The end degenerates into a big of a Godzilla parody, but still funny. be sure to stick around for the end of the credits too.

The general consensus doesn't seem to be that Getting Any? Is Takeshi Kitano's best film by any means, but it might be the one I've enjoyed the most of those I've seen so far. It starts as an increasingly absurd movie about a lonely man going to great lengths to get with girls, only for nothing to work. His life becomes more and more of a joke, with the film becoming a series of movie parodies throughout the second half, including samurai movies, yakuza movies, sci-fi/horror movies, and kaiju movies (there's a pretty fun spin on the Mothra summoning song near the end).

I found its sense of humor to be largely hilarious, but it's probably not for everyone. I found the earlier, more random sequences funnier, even if the later ones did feel more targeted, given it gradually became clearer what certain scenes were intending to parody. But the madness of the first half-hour or so really caught me off guard in the best way possible, and that opening third of Getting Any? Is probably like a 10/10, as far as comedies go.

There aren't many comedies that can keep that kind of energy up for 90 or more minutes, and so it's sad to say that Getting Any? Gets a little less funny as it goes along. But it never lost me, and it never went long without landing a well-executed joke, and so overall, I'd still say it's pretty great... but again, clearly not for everyone. Those who like absurd, cartoonish comedy presented in a blunt and/or awkward fashion will find a lot to like here, and at its best, it honestly has a comparable style of comedy to something like The Blues Brothers.

Takeshi Kitano is worldwide known because of his violent movies such as Brother, Hana-bi, Violent Cop, etc. However in Japan is the other way around, he is mostly known by his comedy tv shows or duo-comedy shows (the two beats), where he got the name "Beat".

Minna Yatteruka! could be Kitano's masterpiece in comedy, but still very difficult to import. At least, Image has released in Hong Kong and USA the DVD of Minna Yatteruka (getting any?) with English subtitles, and we've been able to see the unknown Kitano in a hilarious movie.

First of all, I have to say that I've seen all Kitano movies, even Dolls, and this movie has nothing to do with them, it's a completely different story, has more to do with tv shows he directed like Takeshi's Castle.

So, the movie is just astonishing, it comes from the most stupid situation and developes through gag to gag. One hour and a half of cinema parody fullfiled with Japanese Manga stupidity. The rhythm of the movie is slow, very slow at some points for a comedy, but it's still a good movie. I found parodies from his other yakuza movies, Ultraman, even the gohstbusters! and I'm sure I missed a lot.

Overall Review: A very funny movie, a fresh product, but might be too weird for the general audience. So, if you are interested in the Japanese culture, in Kitano, or if you are openminded for new experiences in comedy, check for it, unless , discard it and look for American Pie.

This is a truly funny film that crosses all boundaries... despite not having English subtitles I was totally gripped by the insanity of the images on display, and Takeshi Kitano's brilliant deadpan performance. It's incredible how such a simplistic tale of a man stumbling from one bizarre situation to another, with little or no rhyme or reason, can be so laugh-out-loud funny.

First off two questions:

1.How well do you know Japanese pop culture? Have you seen Japanese yakuza films? Godzilla? Do you know Zatoichi and Lone Wolf and Cub? How about Ultraman? Have you watched things like Extreme Elimination on Spike (which is a Beat Takeshi TV show)? Do you know about their attitudes towards sex?

2.Are you bothered by base humor that goes for the lowest common denominator? Get you get past woman being nothing more than objects to take their clothes off? Do you laugh at poop jokes or for that matter just really dumb jokes?

If you know a bit about Japanese culture and can laugh at stupid jokes then this is for you.

Starting as one man's quest to get a car so he can have sex in it, this film morphs into a destruction of dozens of Japanese icons. It proves that Western eyes aren't the only ones who find much of Japanese culture silly.

If you have a passing awareness of what they are sending up and tearing down this is absolutely hysterical. Granted you won't get everything, but you'll probably smile from start to finish with frequent bursts of laughter.

One of the chief reasons this works is that there is intelligence behind the humor. Yes, the hero is a pig, and his attitudes towards women are terrible, but thats the point and much of the pain that he ends up getting he deserves for being the way he is. The jokes about the icons is often dead on, for example the film dismantles Lone Wolf and Cub in a minute and a half so perfectly I doubt that I'll be able to watch the movies with a straight face ever again.

If you know Japanese culture and love to laugh see this movie. You may not love it all, but you will laugh.

A word of warning- this movie would be rated R if released in the US. Not just for the sex and nudity, but for the scatological humor which cross over into the graphic.

For Japanophiles with a low brow sense of humor 8 out of 10. For everyone else 4 out of 10.