DVD
Visitor Q

Starring: Kenichi Endo Fujiko, Jun Muto and Shoko Nakahara
Tartan Video
RRP: £19.99
TVD 3440
Certificate: 18
Available 26 April 2004


When 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 he is somewhat surprised to encounter his nubile young daughter. Soon after, he meets "Q", an enigmatic stranger, and invites him to visit his family home. Upon entering the dysfunctional world, "Q" sets about teaching each family member a unique and special lesson. But will he succeed in creating domestic harmony?

After watching Visitor Q the first thing that pops into my head is 'eh?' To say that this is a very inaccessible film is putting it mildly. Whilst it most certainly is controversial and taboo breaking, you can't help but think that these taboo's should not have been broken.

Directed by world famous Takashi Miike (Audition, Itchi the killer) The film will stretch you and some of the scenes will either bore you senseless, confuse you or just make you want to turn it off.

Being a fan of the director's work does make this job a great deal harder than it should be. It would be easy to harp on about the shoestring budget and how well it's edited and filmed. But sadly at the end of the day it is not an easy film. Some scenes may disturb you and some scenes will bore you. It also may put you off watching anymore of the director's films which is a great shame because he has done some fantastic work.

The only extras on the DVD are a film note leaflet, an Asia Extreme trailer reel and a film trailer - not that great. The good thing is that there is a DTS track on this film. But with this sort of subject matter you don't really get any benefit of this track.

No matter what you think of Takashi's films, you can never say that he didn't make you think, but he should not make it this much of a chore.

Simon Lee

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