I have always thought of Japonesse comedy as being like Shakespeare comedy; funny to the people of the time and/or place but not to the rest of us. This is the first Asian film to not only make me laugh more than just a chuckle, but to make me cry with laughter and literally smack my knee. The reason that this is so good is because it seems as if writer director Noboru Iguchi took a step or two back too get a view of the Asian film market as a whole and even seems to have looked at it with a non-Asian eye to see how the rest of us see the market.
The deliberate over-the-top cheese and "happy family beginnings" were great fun, but its the wonderfully gory scenes that you'll remember. I don't want to go into too much detail so as to avoid spoiling the fun for those who haven't seen it, except to say that the scene with the main bad guy making his son drink his blood as a right of passage to the yakuzza is the main culprit for my man tears.
The only real problem of note is that the fun starts to dry a little as time goes on, the gore occurs less and less and the deliberate cheesy acting and dialogue almost gets tiresome (though it never actually is). It seems as if Iguchi used up all his best ideas too quickly in the first half and had to run with an empty tank for the last third.
Despite this its still always superb fun, and even though it is definitely gory, I recommend most people to see it, just cover your eyes if it gets too much at times!
