Monday, July 29, 2013

The CK’s Not-So-Secret Santa Review Swap - Visitor Q

By s. Monday, July 29, 2013 ,
Sometime ago I signed up for Nick's awesome blogathon - Secret Santa swap. This is a very cool idea as it was an opportunity for people to see the movie they wouldn't see otherwise. We were supposed to give one movie that will be assigned to random person in the poll and we got one to watch and review as well. I chose Dark Harbor, which is very underrated and then the e-mail from Nick came.

See, this is just my luck. I'm shocked that I managed to survive 23 years on this Earth without a piano falling from the sky and landing on me. My point is that I got Visitor Q.

I heard about that movie a whole bunch of times whenever "what is the sickest/most disturbing/most shocking film you ever seen?" topic was discussed.  Truth be told I had some major problems to actually find any pics in the movie I could use in the post. I narrowed it down to 2 and well, a poster, which actually features one of the most disturbing scenes in the movie. Not that the breastfeeding per se is disturbing, but when it's just adults involved or kids that are seriously past the age they should be breastfed, it's just one of the things that I find seriously bizarre in a very bad way.

While I didn't enjoy the film all together as my threshold for creepy was crossed multiple times here, I was grateful that the film wasn't just sex scenes and crazy stuff - there was an actual plot (well, somewhat, still more plot than Only God Forgives, anyways) and there was humour in the movie, so that's good.

OK, so I think I can just copy this plot summary from imdb because well, it will give you a vision of the craziness that is this movie "A father, who is a failed former television reporter tries to mount a documentary about violence and sex among youths. He proceeds to have sex with his daughter who is now a prostitute and films his son being humiliated and hit by classmates. "Q", a perfect stranger somehow gets involved and enter the bizarre family who's son beats his mom, who in turn is also a prostitute and a heroin addict."

Now, if all of that would be told in straight manner that film would be even more controversial than it already is. Just as with American Psycho, you need humour here because the shit that is happening on the screen is so extreme the film needs something to balance it out. Some of it is really funny but the film has so many extreme scenes it's just hard to watch even if it's basically a comedy. A very, very dark comedy.

The acting is very convincing and I don't think I want to know how much of the stuff that happens here was actually real. Point is that the actors really committed to the roles they were playing and that's admirable.

Overall if you don't have problems with extreme stuff and you like Miike's style you should check this one out.

...or if you are on some sort of cinematic quest where you wanna see seriously bizarre films, definitely watch this one.


14 comments:

  1. WOW, good job on getting through this one, Sati!! As soon as I read the IMDb description, I was relieved I didn't get this movie, ahah. Sounds like a very dark comedy indeed. I think the unrated version of American Psycho was as far as I could go (wish I could un-see some of them), so I don't think I want to see this one.

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    1. Yeah, I'll sit through pretty much everything unless it's Tree of Life/Cloud Atlas kind of thing :)

      Oh, American Psycho the movie is like 1% of the craziness the novel was. After reading it and seeing the film the movie actually came off as pretty tame stuff, even though they did as much as they could, anymore and I don't think the film would be released in cinemas :)

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  2. I'm very happy you participated, but was a little sad that this would be your first (I think?) taste of Takashi Miike. This one is weird as shit, and really unnecessary. However, he's made some amazing films like Audition, Ichi the Killer, and more recently, 13 Assassins (which is not weird at all.. just badass).

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    1. Oh, no, I saw Audition which I quite liked and his episode for Masters of Horror which was actually more...unpleasant than Visitor Q :)

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  3. Nice Review Sati. This is one that I have avoided because of the subject matter, but Im glad you have said that there is some humor to help ballance out the more disturbing elements. May have to seek this one out.

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    1. Thanks! It has funny moments but overall it's pretty extreme stuff.

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  4. Man. What the f--k is this? I'd heard about this one as I've dabbled in Miike a little (Audition, 13 Assassins) but I had no clue what the Hell it was about. Sounds like it's f--ked up just for the sake of being f--ked up.

    So...I'm in.

    I should have signed up for this. Damn.

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    1. Oh it's beyond fucked up :) Still, it's no Antichrist so that's good for everyone :)

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  5. Good on you for following through. It could end up like taking medicine but you seemed pretty much up for it. I think I can skip this, the other Miike films sound more interesting to me. Thanks for taking one for the team.

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  6. Woah. I've never heard of this, and I can see why. Still, it sounds so bizarre that I kind of want to see it. :)

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    1. It is definitely one of the most bizarre films I've seen :)

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  7. Gotta agree with Josh's comment. I had never heard of this but it sounds like something I need to check out. I have enjoyed (er, appreciated?) the other Miike films I have seen. I'll have to check out that Masters of Horror episode, too.

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    1. That Masters of Horror episode is quite good, but it's insanely gory.

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