Review of The Happiness of the Katakuris (2002) by Hannah L — 10 Sep 2011

I am always a fan of Takashi Miike. This film really showed the strange and crazy mind of his. With him and his writers, they made one interesting film. Imagine a horror, comedy, musical, slapstick, claymation, love story.

Sounds kind of hard to take all in; and it is at first. But you really come to enjoy the craziness of this film. The cast is pretty good. The father is Kenji Sawada who seems to always have things happen.

The mother is Keiko Matsuzaka who seems to take charge in the worst situations. Then you have the brother Shinji Takeda who is an ex con. The sister is Naomi Nishida who only wants to find a husband. Her daughter is played by Tamaki Miyazaki who is a cute little girl who is also the narrator.

Then you have the grandpa played by Tetsuro Tanba who is just kind of out of his mind. The whole cast had different personalities and throughout the film you see more interesting characters. Also in the film you will see zombies and death followed by happy musical numbers.

Then you will see reality burst into the abnormal with claymation scenes; creative and interesting. This film will pretty much make you go through every emotion. Combining the goofy with a normal reality.

The story line is really hard to explain. Instead of explaining it, it is better to watch it and experience it. This film is truly not in the norm at all and that is what makes it so great to watch. There is always something going on.

The only really thing I had against it is that it can get a little too confusing and some of the characters moments can get a little too goofy. But no matter what happens, you still want to watch it. I actually caught myself not paying attention to the story at parts and just being interested in the moment going on.

Another crazy film by Takashi Miike.