Minna Yatteruka? (Getting Any? 1995)

Kitano Takeshi

Japan

110 min, color, Japanese (English subtitles)

If I could puke online, I would do it and leave the review at that. I am not squeamish, and low-brow humor is not beneath me. A humorless comedy that tries hard to be funny deserves our pity. However, when such an effort is also mercilessly, utterly, and irredeemably stupid, it becomes offensively boring as well.

Now, before Kitano's admirers scream bloody hell, let me say that it was not that I did not get the cultural and pop references to Japanese culture. I did get them too, if not all, then certainly most of them: Zatoichi, Ultraman, Godzilla, Jo Shishido, Baby Cart, Ken Takakura, and the Flyman, to name a few. It still was not comedy and anyone who can call this film "uproariously funny," deserves at least an award for vivid imagination or else must be a member of the Union for the Blind and Deaf.

The premise was at least promising. Asao (Dankan) wants sex. He wants is bad. He wants it so bad, he's willing to go to any lengths to get it. He fantasizes about fast cars and fast chicks with nice boobs. So naturally he decides to buy a convertible as the first step to great car sex. Several pathetic and lame attempts later, he finally figures that he actually needs a nice car for the scheme to work. But he has no money. So he sells his grandpa's kidneys, tries to rob a bank, becomes an actor in a Zatoichi film, and joins the yakuza as a legendary hitman. Still to no avail. He finally settles for peeping and when a scientist (Kitano Takeshi) offers to make him invisible, he jumps at the opportunity that would allow unlimited peep-shows at public baths. The experiment goes awry and Asao is transmongrified (or whatever the technical term for this is) with a fly. The rest, as they say, is cinematic history. It all ends with a huge pile of shit, a fitting finale for what could have been a harmless film.

I will never understand how anyone could ever find this film funny. True, there was a joke or two that deserve a chuckle. For example, when Asao is to be put under for the experiment, the scientist first tries anaesthetic. It does not work. Then he has his assistant hit Asao on the head with a hammer. It does not work. He finally resorts to reading Shakespeare and Asao is dead after barely two sentences. Or when they try to track the invisible Asao and attempt to enter the public bath. They are stopped at the entrance. "We're gay," is their response (it does not work, but then again it never worked for me either).

Avoid this idiocy at all costs. The DVD itself is pretty bad as well. The transfer is murky and looks like it has been sourced from an abysmal VHS copy. The English subtitles are mostly fine. Although nothing spectacular, the translation cannot be blamed for the complete lack of humor in this film. Would you like to buy my DVD? On second thought, just give me your address and I will mail it to you for free with $20 tucked inside as a gift.

December 30, 2002