Getting Any? (1994)

Obsessed with the idea of owning his first car so he can have sex in it, a young man takes any job he can find and ends up in an escalating series of crazy situations.

Director:

Takeshi Kitano

Writer:

Takeshi Kitano

Stars:

Duncan, Moeko Ezawa, Taka Guadalcanal

Cast

Credited cast:
Duncan	...	Asao (as Dankan)
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Moeko Ezawa	...	Mrs
Taka Guadalcanal	...	Pilote
Hakuryû	...	Judge
Tokie Hidari	...	Mother
Hideo Higashikokubaru	...	Yaku wo check suru Hakase (as Sonomanma Higashi)
Yôjin Hino	...	Car dealership manager
Baiken Jukkanji
Takeshi Kitano	...	Scientist
Akiji Kobayashi	...	Chief of World Defence Force
Yoneko Matsukane	...	Saralyman no tsuma
Yuuji Minakata	...	Head Yakuza 2
Ryûshi Mizukami
Rô Naruse
Masumi Okada	...	Russian actor

Storyline

A slapstick comedy, about a goofy middle-aged man who is obsessed with the idea of having car sex. While pursuing his 'dream', he makes all the wrong moves possible, and ends up enrolling in a number of crazy escapades.

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Plot Keywords:

yakuza | actor | slapstick comedy | sex in a car | satire | 

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Genres:

Comedy

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Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

11 February 1995 (Japan)

Also Known As:

Getting Any?

Company Credits

Production Co:

Office Kitano

Technical Specs

Runtime:

108 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The blue sports car with the missing chassis wasn't road-safe and had to be towed from location to location.

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Quotes

Asao's Mother: Asao! Don't make a fool of yourself!
Asao's Sister: Asao, come down here!
[Asao/Flyman dumps a load onto her forehead]
Asao's Mother: I think... he's angry.

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Crazy Credits

After the end credits, Asao appears again as a giant mutant grasshopper. He bounds across Tokyo, only to impale himself on the Tokyo Tower. After twitching a couple of times, the final copyright notice appears.

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Connections

Spoofs Tômei ningen to hae otoko (1957)

User Reviews

Enjoyable piece of total lunacy from a master

It sometimes comes as a surprise to people when they learn that Takeshi Kitano is best known in Japan as a comedian. The man with the most deadpan expression ever is mainly known for his gangster movies, and for the sometimes shocking portrayal of violence they contain. I'm surprised that people are surprised though, because even his most hardboiled gangster movies contain a strain of deadpan absurdist humour that is at least as characteristic of his films as the violence. Maybe a lot of people simply miss the humour - Americans aren't best known for their appreciation of subtle comedy after all

Watching GETTING ANY? it's hard to imagine anybody missing the fact it is a comedy though, as it is anything but subtle. Actually maybe that's not true - the humour is still often times subtle, but the movie as a whole is unmissably surreal and absurd.

The premise is simple. A not too bright loser has but one thing on his mind - getting laid. He really hasn't got much of a clue how one goes about this, though, and the movie largely concerns his increasingly stupid schemes to get some. First on the list... get a car. Should be simple enough, right? Not for this guy His plans get more and more ludicrous as the movie progresses, and lead him into some ridiculous and sometimes hilarious situations.

This is without a doubt the strangest movie Kitano has done, and it's as wild and inventive as any movie that springs to mind except maybe the odd Jeff Lau or Stephen Chiau film. The movie plays like a strung together sequence of sketches parodying numerous movies and cultural elements, rather like a Japanese Monty Python film. Like Monty Python, it's clear that there's a keen intelligence behind all the stupidity.

The movie is not without flaws, unfortunately - chief of which is that it loses focus for a long time around the half way mark. Our hero gets himself into a couple of dire situations and for some time the whole purpose of his adventure (getting some) is forgotten. It's still funny and ridiculous, but dilutes the experience somewhat and drags on a little too long. It perhaps becomes a little too absurd for its own good in the second half, coming too close to simply being random.

GETTING ANY? is a fairly lightweight contribution to Kitano's resume, but one so totally opposed to his unique style of film-making shown in films like SONATINE and HANA-BI that it simply had to be made. Kitano is far more than a one trick pony, even though it's mainly for one trick that he's known in the west. Unfortunately, GETTING ANY is probably altogether too strange to have widespread appeal in the US, and won't do much to broaden peoples' perception of him.