Getting Any? (1995)

Any careful reader of this journal will have learned at least two things about me: 1) I am something of a completist when it comes to my favourites and 2) I am a major fan of the Japanese actor/director/Renaissance-Man Takeshi Kitano.  The above was his fifth movie as a director after the yakuza flicks that made his name and the only one I'd not seen; the DVD has been sitting there waiting to be viewed, but never quite reached the front of the queue before last night.  Well, talk about different and very, very silly; it's no wonder it's never had a release in the West since it is a distillation of low Japanese humour (among his other accomplishments, Takeshi is a major TV comic there).  If you can picture the Japanese equivalent of a juvenile effort like "Kentucky-Fried Movie" with its hit-or-miss sketches, this is the film in a nutshell.  The basic premise is that a middle-aged man needs a car if he is going to get any casual sex, and it expands from there to our hero's efforts to make his mark with women -- and a fairly low range of women are shown who will strip off for any would-be "catch".  But it goes beyond this to parody classic Japanese themes like the blind swordsman and ends up with the invisible man (Takeshi appears here as a scientist) who somehow morphs with a housefly until he can finally be dispatched by a giant fly-swatter on the world's biggest pile of dung.  I guess you get the message.