loved it!

Those are impossible questions.

"Be it a rock or a grain of sand, in water they sink as the same." Lee Woo-jin (Oldboy)

FaWzY-86, glad to see someone with some sense.

The fact the tattoos were inconsistent made the movie entirely laughable.

A Pyramid as high as the heavens, right next to a prison.
A space shuttle, right next to a prison.
This was pretty "LOL"

I hope this is the last "art" film I ever see; if this is how all of them are, I feel bad for people that can trick themselves into finding them enjoyable.

Nonsensical, pointless,slow, no purpose. It's everything a movie shouldn't be.

I guess people like it....because it looks good?
Which it doesn't, so that would also be weird. Lots of really bad filters, looks like he was messing around with some entry level barbaric tools, like windows movie maker.

Like you said, drunk or stoned, that's the only thing one can take from the movie; a boring, interesting trip.

The movie could've been wrapped up in a 20 minute short film.
Nothing at all happened. The editing was so terrible, 70 percent of the movie was repeating itself, but in a "who-dun-it!" order, instead of just start to end. Hope he never makes a detective/thriller movie.

Any one who gets a sense of genius out of something impossible to follow lives in fairy-tale land; I don't think it's genius stepping outside of your prison cell and asking if you'd rather go to heaven or to space (or whatever they asked), which is what the whole movie revolved around (besides "eternal" love, a concept that's been done to death in j-movies. Which, btw, the shuttle and pyramid were in walking distance, didn't even see a fence!

Yeah...the kind of love where you kill yourself for them...truly beautiful, original, and inspiring. I've only seen this in every J and K-movie.
Wait, they were homosexual...Miike, you're a genius! You changed the cliche!

Miike has not made a good movie in so long, I'm starting to question whether he's made one period; I was just a kid when I got my jollies to the gore-fest that is Ichi the Killer, and every movie I've seen after (about 10 so far) are completely hysterical how bad they are, in literally every sense. Even then, Ichi can only be appreciated because of the wise choice in actors (lol I bet Asano never worked with Miike after that movie? He's too smart)and the incredibly hilarious violence.

Visually, always mediocre quality filming. Might as well bust out my VHS player.
Story, written by someone with a huge imagination, with no sense of reality, therefor completely unbearable to follow , as a human being that doesn't play make-believe.

His Like a Dragon movie was almost as pointless as this, but it had a story to it, even if it was a pretty weak one. His "artsy" style even managed to ruin something as cool as gangsters.

Terribly childish movies, poor slap-stick gore humor, weak "humorous" jokes but with adult content; he sure does have an interesting take on directing by making movies that only a toddler could enjoy, but with the gore and sex that only an adult should see.

About to watch Scars of The Sun. I hear it's melodramatic. He can't make good action, comedy, or shock movies, so maybe inducing-tears is his calling. I'll find out soon.

I'm writing him off as a director, and as a human, if this movie fails.
I can no longer take his social-awkwardness seriously anymore, and am ashamed I ever gave in to this "cult" director at one point in life.

I think most people who enjoyed it will have their own answers to those questions (or feel that there's no need to answer them), but for all it's worth, here are mine...

What does the "Big Bang Love" or "4.6 Billion Years of Love" title have to do with the actual film?
Our solar system is supposed to have come into existence about 4.6 billion years ago, so that's a clear reference to that. And "Big Bang Love" would be a clear reference to the Big Bang that is supposed to have been the beginning of the universe.
In other words, the title is telling us that we're talking about a love that has a totally "timeless" setting and giving us the freedom to explore the other "astronomical connotations" like how does man fit into the universe (and any others you can come up with).

What are the characters doing? Where Are they? Juvenile hall? Adults prison?
It doesn't matter! The title itself is telling us that all this is beside the point. The story (if you can call it that) is not set in a concrete time or place. If you start trying to place it then naturally you *will* get frustrated and conclude that nothing makes sense.
The idea is more to create an atmosphere than anything that is explainable "as a story". The important thing is that wherever they are, they're trapped. There's the rocket, the ancient building which will lead to heaven and death - that's three escape routes of which two are dreams rather than realities. They're also trapped into doing things that don't really matter (remember when they're "doing the laundry" in the rain? One of them says it's stupid because after the rain stops they'll have to do it all over again anyway, but they're told they have to do it because they need a regular routine).

Why did the tattoos on Kazuki come on and off?
The tattoos seem to have something to do with masculinity. The first time we're exposed to them is very early on when the boy is told he has to go through the ritual of manhood (only that then the tattoos are on the strange dancer). Ariyoshi seems to project the tattoos onto Kazuki. I think they disappear mainly around the times when Ariyoshi sees Kazuki as a little boy (that's the other projection he seems to make).
There's actually a scene between Kazuki and Ariyoshi (the one in which Ariyoshi holds him) when Ariyoshi says that maybe he's wrong and he doesn't want to be Kazuki after all - he says this right when he starts to see Kazuki as a little boy.

Why is Ariyoshi so effeminate?
Because Ariyoshi has "not gone through the ritual of manhood", he's still a boy. He wants to become a man (whatever that means - he doesn't really know himself I think), but doesn't seem to be able to get there. That's why he says he wants to be Kazuki - to him Kazuki is the man he wants to become.
But then of course there's the question of whether Kazuki really has become a man - every so often Ariyoshi sees him as a little boy and doubts the whole thing. It's like the film is asking what being a man means and if our idea of masculinity really is that.

Is this movie about homosexuals?
I don't think the answer to this one matters.
Clearly, there's a lot of questions about what masculinity is and homosexuality fits into that. Certainly the film is homoerotic. Are the characters gay? It just doesn't matter IMO. You can interpret it as you want I think.

What's with the butterfly?
The butterfly had me baffled as well. I'll probably need to watch it again to get it. But I think it mainly appeared when Ariyoshi was realizing something about Kazuki or his relationship with him.

What happened to Ariyoshi in the end?
I'm not sure how to understand "in the end" ;) But it was my understanding that Ariyoshi was in love with Kazuki. I'm not sure how sexual or not it was or even to what extent it was reciprocated, but I think it's clear he wanted a very intense sort of emotional closeness and understanding with Kazuki. The scene in which they ask each other about where they want to go - heaven or outer space is key here.
Ariyoshi was very distraught because I think he believed he had failed to achieve that closeness. There were three escape routes (heaven, outer space and death), but he had only asked about two. He had failed to consider Kazuki's chosen one might be death.
You could interpret that love is the key and point of human existence (which brings us back to the title of the film) and that Ariyoshi felt that by failing to give Kazuki the emotional understanding he needed he might have killed him (he tells the inspectors that if it wasn't him then it was the rainbow). But also at the same time, I think he was jealous that he had not been told Kazuki wanted to escape via death. He wanted to help Kazuki escape in a romantic sort of way (heaven or outer space), but if Kazuki's chosen way of escape was death he would have done that for him also. And so, after he failed, he tried to put it right. Perhaps also he felt so guilty that he had failed to understand Kazuki that he wanted to be punished for it.
There's a lot of strange things going on there and I think one could invent a lot of interpretations :] One can come up with a quite a lot from Kazuki's point of view also.

How in any way, was this movie so magical? What did I miss?
I think some of us really enjoyed the fact that this film was so timeless and placeless and almost plotless. One could concentrate on the feeling coming through (and if someone felt so inclined - on trying to interpret it) instead of on the plot.
I think that for somebody for whom a film is nothing more than a story that will grab your interest this would have been a huge waste of time. But with a different attitude, trust me, it is very enjoyable ;) Also, personally (I'm a girl) I find the two main actors very sexy in this film, so I guess that helps too ;)

Well maybe the trouble is that you're a writer. Literature logic and movie logic are different.

I see you wish to understand the movie. Understanding is not that important in visual art. Not only contemporary visual art. Do you "understand" Mona Lisa? What's there to "understand"?

Admittedly, there is narrative in this film, but all the questions concerning it were answered in a very obvious and deliberate way. Even the 4.6 billion years concept. There is a monologue at the very beginning about speed of light and time. I don't like that element of the movie much, but it's fitted neatly into the overall structure, it doesn't stand out.

Also, I don't like the pyramid and the rocket at all because they're too overt symbols of faith and science. Moreover the mentioning of that dychotomy didn't add to the movie much. But what I do like is how Miike told us what the rocket is for. Remember the shot of satellite over the Earth? You can see a hurricane over Japan down there. The rocket carries a weather satellite. It's not relevant, but it's neatly done. Without any faked dialogue infodumps that most movies live by.

And what's so magical? Remember the beginning? It starts with a stylized scene of a monologue that looks like it came straight from a Wong Kar Wai movie. After that we have a scene that looks like a high budget documentary. Immediately after that we have a dance scene, almost a music video. Then we're back to theater style scenes. Also later on there are some scenes filmed with a handheld camera, very cinema-verite in style. And it all fits perfectly. There isn't a single jarring transition up to the moment the rocket and the pyramid appear. The reason is that Miike is an insanely skillful director and he can pull off almost anything. There are lots of movies with straight plot and bunch of simple dialogues that seem far more disjointed than this one. See Queen of the Damned for example, if you don't believe me.

Regarding the butterfly, gimme a break. You really expect a movie to explain something like that? Maybe like Rob Zombie did for Halloween 2 remake? Putting a quote from a dictionary to explain what the white horse symbolizes. LOL
BTW what's the meaning of Mona Lisa's smile? :)