Visitor Q
2001
In Miike Takashi's outrageous, taboo-busting satire Vistor Q, shamed reporter Kiyoshi Yamazaki visits one of Japan's many comfort houses to make a documentary about sex and violence amongst the nation's youth and is surprised to encounter his nubile daughter there. Soon after he meets "Q", an enigmatic stranger, and invites him .. Read more
| Starring | Kenichi Endo, Shungiku Uchida, Kazushi Watanabe |
|---|---|
| Director | Takashi Miike |
| Genres | Drama, World Cinema |
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Visitor Q
In Miike Takashi's outrageous, taboo-busting satire Vistor Q, shamed reporter Kiyoshi Yamazaki visits one of Japan's many comfort houses to make a documentary about sex and violence amongst the nation's youth and is surprised to encounter his nubile daughter there. Soon after he meets "Q", an enigmatic stranger, and invites him to visit his family home. Upon entering this dysfunctional world, "Q" sets about teaching each family member a unique and special lesson. But will he succeed in creating domestic harmony?
| Starring | Kenichi Endo, Shungiku Uchida, Kazushi Watanabe |
|---|---|
| Director | Takashi Miike |
| Studio | PALISADES TARTAN |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 26 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Drama, World Cinema |
| Language | Japanese |
| Subtitles | English |
| Released | DVD: 24 May 2004 Production year: 2001 |
| Format | DVD |
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Critics' reviews (3)
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An excess too far. Miike uses a satire on reality TV as an opportunity to break as many taboos as possible: it begins with a teenage prostitute seducing her father, then takes in sadistic bullying, mother-bashing, murder and an extended sequence of necrop
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Made for peanuts and shot on DV, this phenomenally provocative film may well turn out to be Miike's masterpiece. A... read more on Time Out
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Most helpful member's review
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30 out of 32 people found this review helpful
Strangest Miike yet...
Without a doubt, this is the strangest Miike film to date...Mid-way between the high-camp farce of 'Happiness of the Katakuris' and the twisted S&M madness of 'Ichii the Killer', it hits at every taboo imaginable. At times the humour verges on slapstick - the father, having just raped and strangled a co-worker, preparing to dismember her body in, of all places, a completely glass-walled greenhouse - at others, it is so dark it's painful to watch - the son beating his mother, and her tears as she attempts to cover up the resulting scars all over her body - this is a Japanese Mike Leigh on acid...Miike, in many of his films, seems to capture a twisted hysteria lurking at the heart of Japanese society, a society where cannibal killers become celebrities, and where a hegemony of abuse is simply an accepted part of life, amongst school children and adults, and from the cradle to the grave...Many of Miike's films seem to reflect on the immaturity of the Japanese, and the fear that the old (particularly older males, as Japan is still very much a patriarchal society) feel towards the changes - in perception, attitudes and desires - amongst young people in modern Japan...'Visitor Q' particularly highlights a growing dissafection with the traditional mainstay of Japanese culture - the family unit - and the subservient role of women and children within it, a role that has changed, and continues to change, irrevocably as more and more outside influences flood in - particularly the wholesale adoption and adoration of American cultural iconography - threatening to overwhelm what are seen as 'traditional' values...'Visitor Q' as with many of Miike's films, however, can be enjoyed simply as a sick, slick, twisted and darkly amusing comedy...This is the family that put the 'fun' in disfunctional...And their mysterious Visitor (the 'Q' of the title, one assumes...) although a million miles away from the visiting angel in 'The Bishop's Wife', has, in the end, the same effect, healing this terminally warped family...but in absolutely the least predictable way imaginable! If you're easily shocked, then don't bother. You won't enjoy this, and it'll only make you get all steamed up and onto your moral high-horse...'Visitor Q' has to be watched with a healthy and open mind...
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Most recent members' review
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25 out of 30 people found this review helpful
Unique
I have never seen anything quite like this. Very odd story about a family where the daughter is a prostitute, the son, who is bullied at school, beats his mother, the father is an incestuous cameraman/director and the mum is a junkie. Oh and there is a visitor who hits people with rocks.
The story starts strange and gets stranger. It hits just about every taboo that you can imagine. I find it hard to express just how good this film is. Black comedy at its blackest and best. -
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