Minna - yatteru ka!

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.

This Takeshi Kitano movie is all over the map and suffers because of it. He tells a "full-out" comedy that tries to cram everything and the kitchen sink re: other Japanese movies. It starts out with Asao looking for sex and doing every weird thing in the world to try to get it but failing; And ends with him becoming the Flyman. There are funny moments when he is mistaken for a hitman and when he auditions as an actor; but many other moments are tedious. Nowhere as good as Kids Return( 9/10) or Fireworks. Overall, a 5 out of 10.

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.

Not my favourite Takeshi movie but then he did make so many good ones so it's hard to pick. This one has a more scattershot approach and it also goes on a bit too long; the yakuza material around the middle part feels stretched and repetitive as a result. What starts out as a wacky sex comedy becomes more and more wacky as it goes on, leading to spoofs of various film genres as well as the Japanese film industry in and of itself. Quite unlike anything I've seen, even other Takeshi films.

I love Takeshi Kitano's movies, not every movie he does is perfect but I appreciate the amount of style and effort he puts on each film to do something very singular to his vision. And it just so happens his take on complete satire and slapstick comedy is absolutely fun, but as I said- not perfect.

Getting Any? As the title suggests is about the quest of getting laid at all costs. We follow incel-like pervert Asao (who has his room plastered filled with porn posters) who gets out on the quest to get a car in order to get a gorgeous lady to have sex with him, cause if you have the car then ladies will swarm you to have sex right? Not really. We then follow this completely despicable guy get in all sorts of trouble and mishaps on the way to his quest which is just pure fun- everything from failed bank robberies, yakuza-involvement and scientific experiments- this movie won't end in the way you think it's gonna end and that's amazing! I love that the movie has some sort of criticism on the state of entertainment as a whole, Japanese pervert culture and more- it's never obvious but sometimes it can be on-your-face which is not annoying in this case. It even spoofs a lot of western cultural stuff like movies and music which is interesting to see in itself how the western culture gets translated in a whole new cultural setting in Japan.

The comedy is top notch- one gag after the other, the comedy sometimes can hang on different Japanese cultural references that I'm not familiar with but it's fun nevertheless. The movie despite it's subject matter is filmed in a very very gorgeous way, with crisp and beautiful footage (just look at the opening scene which is just fantastic). It has some "cheaper" looking shots but it's totally appropriate considering which movie this is. The music is also fun, altering between gorgeous tracks to some fun pop music of the era to folk and enka tracks.

This all sounds very fun and it totally is the first hour or so is very engaging and offers many moments to laugh. It is in its second half when it looses a bit of its track and steam, the yakuza segment can feel a bit way too long and the last plot could've been made much more snappier! Don't get me wrong, there are still some very funny moments in the second half I just felt personally that I kind of lost the plot for a bit, until the absurd final takes place which makes up for it absolutely. The portrayal of women in this film can feel a bit weird but considering the film's subject matter and such it's a bit understandable.

Either way I think this movie is totally worth a watch, it's funny, weird, silly and so much more. You will not be disappointed by this movie- I think it's on par with Takeshi's other satire movie "Kantoku Banzai" perhaps even better? Check it out!