Katakuri-ke no kôfuku (2001)

User Rating:

7.3/10   

Director:

Takashi Miike

Writers:

Ai Kennedy (translation)
Kikumi Yamagishi (screenplay)

Release Date:

23 February 2002 (Japan)

Genre:

Comedy | Horror | Musical | Romance | Thriller

Tagline:

Love, Music, Horror, Volcanos. Cinema was never meant to be like this! (UK Release)

Plot:

The Katakuri family has just opened their guest house in the mountains. Unfortunately their first guest...

Plot Keywords:

Suicide | Sumo Wrestler | Sex | Mountain | Dying During Sex

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Kenji Sawada	...	Masao Katakuri
Keiko Matsuzaka	...	Terue Katakuri
Shinji Takeda	...	Masayuki Katakuri
Naomi Nishida	...	Shizue Katakuri
Kiyoshiro Imawano	...	Richâdo Sagawa
Tetsuro Tamba	...	Ojîsan Jinpei Katakuri
Naoto Takenaka	...	TV Reporter / Singer
Tamaki Miyazaki	...	Yurie Katakuri
Takashi Matsuzaki	...	Utanômi
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Yoshiki Arizono	...	Father of the poor family
Chihiro Asakawa	...	Utanômi's girlfriend
Masahiro Asakawa
Kenichi Endo	...	Kudou
Moeko Ezawa
Akiko Hatakeyama
Yumeki Kanazawa	...	Byôki otoko no ko
Maro
Aya Meguro
Yoshiyuki Morishita	...	Policeman Miyaki
Yuka Nakatani
Miho Sawada
Tokitoshi Shiota	...	First guest

Also Known As:

The Happiness of the Katakuris (Japan: English title) (UK)

MPAA:

Rated R for violent images and some sexual content.

Runtime:

113 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Colour:

Colour

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Germany:12 | UK:15 | USA:R | Australia:M | Finland:K-15

Filming Locations:

Kameoka, Kyoto, Japan

Company:

Katakuri-ke no Kôfuku Seisaku Iinkai

Movie Connections:

References "Sazae-san" (1969)

A Kinder, Gentler, Takashi Miike?

A kinder, gentler, Takashi Miike, you say? Well, sort of, yes, a bit, anyway. There is a little girl in this so it's a bit more restrained, possibly because of that, and it's a LITTLE more of a family-type movie, at least more a "normal" family, not like the family of Visitor Q. The Katakuris open a small inn in the mountains, hoping that a big new roadway will pass by and they'll have lots of guests. What guests do manage to find them are not exactly well-balanced and some of them check in but don't exactly check out, at least not under their own power. There is a lot of black humor to this, and while the setting is not unlike The Sound of Music, and the family breaks into songs at unlikely times, it's usually at some of the more grim moments, which of course is entirely inappropriate and therefore much more funny. It's absolutely hilarious to see these folks in some serious scene and then all of a sudden break into some music video moves. The scene with the sumo wrestler and his "date" is probably the most gruesomely funny. What makes this a bit weirder than his other films is that it morphs into claymation at times, including somewhere near the beginning where some young girl finds a little flying demon in her soup and it flies out and steals her uvula. Yes, really. I guess after watching a good deal of Takashi Miike's films that I can't exactly go into any new one knowing exactly what to expect since he's pretty hard to pigeon-hole. If you like off-the-wall comedies with a decent helping of the macabre, then you should see this. Weird & fun.