Rating: NR
Genre:
Horror
Theatrical Release: 07/11/2003(Japan),
Release Date: 12/08/2009
Flags: Not For Children, Sexual Situations, Gore
Distributor/Studio: Cinema Epoch
At a yakuza gathering,
Ozaki (
Shô Aikawa of the
Dead or Alive films) unsettles the boss (
Renji Ishibashi) when he claims a small dog outside the restaurant is a "yakuza attack dog" and viciously smashes it to death.
Minami (
Hideki Sone) is assigned to drive the apparently unstable
Ozaki to a remote location and kill him.
Minami considers
Ozaki a "brother," and feels ambivalent about this assignment. After several odd incidents on the road,
Minami ends up in the small town of Nagoya, where things get even odder. Unable to get a signal on his cellular,
Minami goes into a restaurant to use the phone, and
Ozaki, whom he thought to be unconscious, promptly vanishes. When
Minami finally contacts the boss, he's told to get in touch with the local Shiroyama crew.
Minami doesn't know his way around, and the weird locals seem more interested in animated, interminable arguments about the weather than in helping him find his way. Eventually he runs into
Nose (
Shôhei Hino), who seems relatively sane, and offers to help him find
Ozaki.
Minami spends the night at an inn, where the innkeeper (
Keiko Tomita) possesses a strange lactating power (which she's eager to demonstrate), and mistreats her mentally challenged employee (
Harumi Sone). After another frustrating day searching for
Ozaki, during which he encounters the decrepit Shiroyama crew,
Minami finds a note from his "brother," and travels to the town dump to meet him, only to find
Ozaki (now played by
Kimika Yoshino) in a transformed state.
Gozu was directed by the prolific
Takashi Miike from a script by
Sakichi Satô, who also wrote the script for
Miike's
Ichi the Killer.
~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide