Visitor Q (2001)

Miike's best film, simply incredible

Yes, Audition is masterful, but in my opinion this is Miike's best work.

The less you know about this movie the better. Yes, its sick and twisted, but its also an incredibly heartwarming family film, and no, I'm not being sarcastic. The fact that Miike can make these two elements coexist and actually work is an accomplishment in itself. I've never seen a movie so funny and shocking as this.

If you can't handle dark or twisted humor, you will not like this. If you do have that sense of humor, you will absolutely love it and consider it one of your favorite movies of all time, as I do. October 5, 2008

waste of time

This movie(if we can call it that)was the biggest waste of a disc that I have ever seen.Besides being disturbing and discusting the movie makes no sense what so ever.I think I would rather have a root canal or spend the night in a Turkish prison then have to suffer watching this piece of trash again.Dont waste your money or time with this one. August 3, 2008

So Disturbing You Have To Watch

Visitor Q is Takashi Miike's take on reality television. If you've never seen a Takashi Miike film, then prepare yourself to be shocked and to see things you've never seen in a movie before. Visitor Q focuses around the Yamazaki family. Kiyoshi, the father, used to be a television broadcaster and is trying to come up with ideas for a new reality television show. Keiko, the mother, is verbally and physically abused by her son. She and Kiyoshi pretty much allow it to happen, but her only rule is that her son doesn't mess up her face. Takuya, the son, is picked on by bullies even while he's at home. A visitor shows up at the house after hitting Kiyoshi over the head with a rock...twice. Their lives get even more screwed up as he shows up and it's all caught on camera.

If you watch this movie, you might as well know what you're getting yourself into. This movie not only contains "strong aberrant sexual and violent content, language and drug use" as stated by the MPAA when giving the movie an R rating, but it also contains incest, necrophilia, and just things that people will find disturbing in general. Like a woman lactating from her nipples and having it squirt all over the place. I'm just trying to give you fair warning just in case you're thinking about watching a movie that you won't be able to finish. It's not for everybody and just know that you're in for a wild ride.

That's not to say that the movie isn't enjoyable though. Even though it deals with a lot of disturbing material, there's some comedy in there. The fact that the visitor(he never really says what his name is) bashes people over the head with a rock just because he can is kind of hilarious. To tell the truth, it kept me watching because this family was so messed up. And the way Kiyoshi lost his broadcasting job will be remembered...forever.

Takashi Miike is known quite well in the horror community for pushing the envelope in movies like Ichi the Killer and Imprint, so horror fans know that if they know they're watching a movie done by Miike that they're going to see some material they won't see anywhere else. Casual movie fans may not be interested in shock value or movies that are this disturbing. Visitor Q not only pushes the envelope, it pays for postage and insurance as well.

The bottom line is that if you want to be grossed out or have a bunch of "what the @#$%?!" moments, rent Visitor Q or any Takashi Miike film for that matter.

Rating: 6/10 April 3, 2008

"reality" tv influences art.

many dislike takashi miike's films and have a hard time swallowing their content. i will admit, i do too sometimes as i find myself looking away or feeling generally repulsed. but there's something shockingly correct about this film in particular and the perspective it shines on this home-model that is pure bs anyway. hard to describe the film, but i recommend it March 17, 2008

The World's Most Dysfunctional Family

From the perspective of content "Visitor Q" is perhaps the outermost extension of Japanese director Takashi Miike's wild and tenacious tendency to discuss taste and taboo. This time however he couches his discourse in a purposefully flat, washed out digital video aesthetic, which works in contrast to the highly stylised sado-masochistic dystopia of "Ichi the Killer" or the genre confounding shock treatment of "Audition". The disintegration of the family and its redemption is an overriding theme in Miike's film, and in this film he creates a family wallowing in a vile pit of perversions and repressions. These perversions are allowed life because of the fragmented nature of the family and the disunity that badly needs repairing. Adding to Miike's stock in trade images of torture, anal violation and beheading we have necrophilia and incest. However it's quite easy in the west to get sidetracked into placing too much attention on the transgressive elements of Miike's cinema; something our critics regularly do. I personally believe that one of Miike's motives in celebrating such excess is a clever awareness of the politics of cult film reception in the west, and he constructs his films in a manner which self-consciously appeals to such a reading (in this respect comparisons with Tarantino are wholly appropriate).

Beyond the vile, degrading and disgusting behaviour displayed in "Visitor Q" is ultimately a tale about familial alienation, parental failure and repressed emotions and desires. The titular visitor is the enigmatic, unknown and unknowable quantity that repairs the broken family, his motives are never known. The visitor also has a direct relationship with Miike's objective camera, suggesting on some level that the visitor is aligned with the audience. The presentation of the film is stylistically coherent, and all the more impressive for its ultra low budget ($70,000). Miike enjoys the freedom the digital format gives him, and as Lynch did with "Inland Empire" gets up to all kinds of subjective/objective point of view mischief. This is an excellent example of Miike's exaggerated content, working in tandem with an unexaggerated style.
February 21, 2008

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