Review of The Happiness of the Katakuris (2002) by Stuart K — 06 Feb 2015
Directed by Takashi Miike, who had made his name with such ultra-violent shockers like Audition (1999), Dead or Alive (1999) and Ichi the Killer (2001)), shocked audiences again by making something completely different.
This absolutely bonkers horror-comedy-musical with moments of lurid claymation animation. You won't see another film like this being made anytime soon!! Set at White Lover's Inn near Mount Fuji, the Inn was started by the Katakuri family, which consist of father Masao Katakuri (Kenji Sawada), his wife Terue (Keiko Matsuzaka), his father Jinpei (Tetsur? Tamba), his criminal son Masayuki (Shinji Takeda), his divorced daughter Shizue (Naomi Nishida) and her child Yurie (Tamaki Miyazaki).
They built the Inn from nothing, and it was situated on an old rubbish dump, but business is slow, but when a local TV personality (Naoto Takenaka) comes to stay and ends up killing himself, the Katakuri family cover up the death.
More guests later stay, and they all die, but the family had nothing to do with them! You could never get away with a film like this in Hollywood or Europe. No, something as nutty and indescribable as this could only have come from Japan.
Miike has fun with the concept, and he should try something like this again, as he shows a bit of a knack for tackling black comedy, and animation too.
This review of The Happiness of the Katakuris (2002) was written by Stuart K on 06 Feb 2015.
The Happiness of the Katakuris has generally received positive reviews.
Was this review helpful?
