The Happiness of the Katakuris

Katakuri-ke no kôfuku

Japan

2001

113 Min

Color

1.85:1

Japanese

Currently 3.6/5 Stars.
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SCR Ai Kennedy, Kikumi Yamagishi

CAST Kenji Sawada, Keiko Matsuzaka, Shinji Takeda, Naomi Nishida, Kiyoshiro Imawano

The Katakuri family run a small bed and breakfast location deep in the mountains. Their entire savings and lives have been sunk into it since they were convinced that a highway was being built in the area, and assumed it would bring in many visitors. Unfortunately, they have not had a single one yet. Masao, the patriarch of the family, is almost at the breaking point when a guest actually shows up at their door. They welcome him with open arms and have a new sense of optimism – until he kills himself later that night. Instead of informing the police, they bury him to avoid the bad publicity. Things turn from bad to worse as other new guests arrive and also end up dying. The bodies pile up, but this does not stop any of the characters from suddenly breaking out into song and dance numbers at random moments. —Directory of World Cinema

Director

Takashi Miike

A contemporary of such noted film experimentalists as Tetsuo: The Iron Man [1989, maverick Japanese workhorse director Takashi Miike became one of the most talked about filmmakers in the international festival circuit. Despite the derailed manic energy of the aforementioned films, it was the stark relationship drama turned sadistic nightmare Audition that found the director receiving increasing international exposure. Audition succeeded in pulling the rug from under viewers as it turned the age-old image of the submissive Japanese female on its head with a shocking and nearly unbearable finale that had many horrified viewers shell-shocked. Born in Osaka, Japan, in 1960, Miike spent his childhood growing up in Osaka, where he eventually opted to study filmmaking at the Yokohama Academy of Visual Arts. Inspired more by Bruce Lee than Seijun Suzuki, Miike’s distinctive style came more as a result of not studying the traditional rules of filmmaking than a conscious attempt to break them… read more

A contemporary of such noted film experimentalists as Tetsuo: The Iron Man [1989, maverick Japanese workhorse director Takashi Miike became one of the most talked about filmmakers in the international festival circuit. Despite the derailed manic energy of the aforementioned films, it was the stark relationship drama turned sadistic nightmare Audition that found the director receiving increasing international exposure. Audition succeeded in pulling the rug from under viewers as it turned the age-old image of the submissive Japanese female on its head with a shocking and nearly unbearable finale that had many horrified viewers shell-shocked. Born in Osaka, Japan, in 1960, Miike spent his childhood growing up in Osaka, where he eventually opted to study filmmaking at the Yokohama Academy of Visual Arts. Inspired more by Bruce Lee than Seijun Suzuki, Miike’s distinctive style came more as a result of not studying the traditional rules of filmmaking than a conscious attempt to break them.

Miike views himself more as an arranger than an author, and his willingness to let a film develop on its own path and constant encouragement of actors and other crew members to flex their creative muscles has resulted in some of the most dynamic films of the last decade. His refusal to succumb to the traditional temptation to produce a film that will please the masses has also been a key factor in the development of his distinctive style, and further refusal to bend to widely accepted narrative structure has earned him both harsh critics and a fiercely loyal fan base. Miike’s films are also frequently targeted for their excessive and often gratuitous violence, though the director sites that the inherent honesty in that violence is more sincere than what he feels is his contemporaries’ romantic misrepresentation of current culture, viewing cinema as an important outlet for such images. Following his directorial debut in 1991, Miike turned out an exhausting 24 films (including two television miniseries) between 1999 and 2002, confirming his status as one of the busiest directors in world cinema. And though Miike may not be a household name, the release of such enticingly quirky and curious efforts as the comedy/musical/horror The Happiness of the Katakuris hints at big things in store for the tireless auteur.

(From http://www.allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=2:235203~T1)

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