Getting Any?

Kitano may have recut this film since I saw it a few weeks ago [in October 1994], when it was half hilarious, half surprisingly leaden. It begins as an absurd comedy about a young dope bent on losing his virginity: because he believes a fast car or a first-class air ticket will make him irresistible, he gets up to a series of crazy antics in pursuit of sex. The repetitive gags about obsession and incompetence, not unlike those in a Roadrunner cartoon, are marvellous; then, when he gets a job acting in a samurai film, the humour drifts off into ever more tired parody (yakuza and monster movies follow). The export cut runs 76 minutes.