Gozu

Miike...a genius and master of metaphor in his films. Gozu holds to this trend in relation to other Miike films, but(yes there is a but) Gozu seemed to have a lot less connectable direction. All the repeating themes of milk, incest, love, death, rebirth are easy to see but hard to understand as a conglomerate of themes. This seemed to be Miike's deep intellectual take on his style of filming but Miike already had a winning formula. His other movies are faster paced, just as deep and thoughtful, and generally more well received. Obviously Miike is going to be known for the Dead or Alive series(I can't help but remember the opening sequence to DOA1: the 30 foot rail of coke, the eruption of violence that ensues, the shotgun blast through the top of the cab, it's a great opening)however Miike might feel stuck or forever bound to those titles. Gozu has a very deep meaning but to tell you my honest opinion: It sucked hard. The reason I say that is because Miike has been a master up until this point. City of Lost Souls, Audition, *beep* great movies. Gozu is a bad movie because of the hype and the expectation many viewers held going in to see it. If you are a fan of Miike, this is a must see movie just so you can see the direction of Miike at work, but don't go into it thinking it's going to be a yakuza shoot-em-up gangster flick. Think of Gozu as Memento meets John Waters meets M. Night Shylaman. Probably not the best mixture but not a failure. Gozu is a bad movie with all of the cogs in the movie making machine working beautifully independently.

HEy I heard it was based loosely on a Japanese myth. Does anyone know if this is true?