Hakkyousuru kuchibiru

I would have to say the most bizarre movie I've seen to date is Shinya Tsukamoto's "Tetsuo" (1988), but "Crazy Lips" comes in a close second. Writer Hiroshi Takahashi, director Hirohisa Sasaki, and producer Takashige Ichise all have a hand in piling genre upon genre in the making of this uncategorizable film. There's something for everybody here, and no hint as to what direction the movie is headed from one scene to the next, so just sit back and enjoy the ride. The only American-made films I've seen that come even remotely close to this amalgamation of forms are "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension" (1984) and "Six-string Samurai" (1998). If you like either of those, or even if you don't, then this movie is worth catching. Rating: 6/10.

When Michio Kurahashi is suspected of being a serial killer and goes on the run, his pretty sister Satomi hires a psychic in a desperate bid to prove his innocence. And precisely what happens after that is anyone's guess...

I usually jot down notes whilst watching a film to help make life easier for me when it comes to writing a comment, but about half an hour into Crazy Lips I put down my pen and paper, for accurately summarising the plot to this insane movie was clearly going to be impossible and all the scribbling in the world wouldn't help me to express my feelings about it.

So I'm going to wing it, sans notation; bear with me...

In a world where most mainstream cinema has become dull and predictable, I can always find time for the completely demented and bizarre, and Crazy Lips is just that—a depraved, off-the-wall piece of Japanese cinema that defies simple categorisation. Supernatural horror, mystery, music, soft porn, and martial arts are combined by director Hirohisa Sasakito to produce a messed up piece of work reminiscent of movie maverick Takashi Miike's offbeat output, only one lacking that director's unique narrative skills, sense of style and intelligence.

But although Sasaki might not be a real threat to Miike when it comes to confrontational cinema (Takashi still holds the title 'King of Japanese Weirdness' for producing monumentally effed up movies like Visitor Q and Fudoh), Crazy Lips is still the only film I have ever seen to feature the wandering spirits of decapitated girls, a pair of FBI agents who keep an eye on proceedings through the screen of a television set, a scalping during intercourse, and a woman being forcefully double teamed by an evil psychic's assistant and a hanging corpse with a hard-on.

All of which must surely count for something.

"WTF did I just watch??" was the only thing that went through my mind when the credits started to roll.

This movie is messed up in all kinds of ways. An amateur mess of different genres. It just jerks from supernatural to horror to comedy to musical to violence to drama to WTF?? I tried hard to get a general concept of the plot. But there really isn't one at all. It's not worth mentioning the plot because the story is loose, messed up, messy, just not a plot at all.

This movie isn't weird, or even so bad it's funny, it's just plain bad. Maybe that was the goal of the makers, because apparently the project was sold to a Chinese company, who told them what kind of film to make, and so the makers decided to mess up the movie, just to tick off the Chinese company.

I didn't really enjoy sitting through the length of this movie. I've read a lot of reviews prior to watching this film, telling me that it's just a really weird, disturbing, messed up movie. Not really. It was just plain bad. I expected a bit more. 3*

The foremost reason why people seem to like this movie is because it's weird. But weird or unusual of course doesn't always also equal good. And thrust me, I have seen plenty of weird stuff, also from Japan, in my life, so I think I know what I'm talking about. And no, this movie just wasn't all that good to watch.

The problem I had with the movie was that I just never really was entertained by it. It's an horror comedy but neither the horror or comedy really impressed me. As a matter of fact, you could hardly call this an horror at all. It only features some ghosts walking around but as it turns out, this doesn't even play an all that central role in the movie.

Also the comedy just wasn't anything that clever or original and instead too often come across as lame and very simplistic instead.

Elements such as nudity, rape, incest, violence gore, are all very much present throughout the movie. Yes, it has all the elements of an exploitation flick, it just isn't a very good one. It all feels very forced and very obviously wanted deliberately to gross out its viewers, by becoming as extreme and weird as possible. Most of the stuff really doesn't make any sense in the context of the story, which as a whole also makes this quite a redundant watch.

Because of all these many different elements, the movie also never flows very well. It doesn't really has a pleasant pace to it, though it's quite hard to tell if this is due to the directing approach, or simply just the script of the movie. I tend to think it's the script, that was just far too lacking in real originality and good creativity.

No Sir, I did not really liked this movie. I never had any fun with it and would even call it quite a pointless watch, so ye be warned!

4/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

It seems that every bozo who's written a comment for this movie has eventually come to a point and admitted that they gave up with trying to follow the plot. But not me! I stuck it out, and I'll now tell you exactly what transpired in Crazy Lips.

Nah, I'm messing with you. I gave up as well. I did. Here's a quick glimpse into what Crazy Lips has to offer. The flick starts off with a family being bombarded by news reporters who want answers about their possible murdering brother. They hire some crazy psychic broad who can remote-sense through telephone lines, then there's her boob squeezin' obsessed side-kick. Then you find out one of the sisters has some type of super mind control power that she uses to kill people with, then the psychic chick orders 'ceremonies' on the entire family that basically just rapes them.....I can go on and on with the whackiness on display here. And it only gets weirder. You want incest and necrophilia? Okay! By the end it turned into a action flick with fights all over the place, and there was even some type of monster 'thing' supposedly on the loose. And there was even a song in the middle of the movie.

Okay, Crazy Lips is nuts. It's that simple. But it's also entertaining. And if you dig any type of weirdness with elements of exploitation, then this should be right up your weird ass alley.