The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001) April 5, 2009
Posted by Cal in : Comedy, Musical, Wacko, 2000s films , 8 commentsDirector: Takashi Miike Main cast: Kenji Sawada; Keiko Matsuzaka; Shinji Takeda; Naomi Nishida; Tamaki Miyazaki; Tetsuro Tanba; Kiyoshiro Imawano Territory: Japan
The Katakuri family open the White Lovers’ Guesthouse in the middle of nowhere, knowing that a major road will one day be built alongside it to provide a steady stream of custom. In the meantime, though, the Guesthouse attracts few guests. And the ones that do check in end up checking out prematurely and permanently, and to avoid a scandal the family resort to burying the bodies on the grounds.
Happiness of the Katakuris starts with a young woman eating soup in a restaurant. She discovers a winged imp in the soup that steals her uvula. The imp is eaten by a crow, which in turn is eaten by a stuffed toy (after stealing an eye from the imp, naturally) and one of the crow’s eggs is eaten by a snake, which is then eaten by more crows. Finally, an egg falls from the crows’ nest and hatches into another winged imp, which is picked up by another crow and carried through the air until it is whacked from the sky by great-grandpa Katakuri while the youngest member of the family solemnly buries her goldfish. This surreal sequence showing the cycle of life and minor personal tragedy is a startling start to this Japanese remake of the South Korean film The Quiet Family.
Mixing claymation sequences, song and dance routines, black comedy, zombies and messages on the importance of the family unit, Happiness of the Katakuris sounds like a crazy mixed bag of genres that would make a messy, incoherent film. However, it ends up gelling a lot better than you’d think, and the result is one of the most striking films I’ve ever seen.
The Katakuris are a likeable bunch from the top down, including Masayuki (Shinji Takeda) who has a light-fingered past and Shizue (Naomi Nishida) who tends to fall in love with any man on sight. The latter falls for Richard Sawada (a scene-stealing Kiyoshiro Imawano), an unconvincing conman pretending to be a British secret agent and member of the Royal family. All of the scenes with Sawada are pretty hilarious, as he ineptly tries to con the gullible Shizue out of some cash.
The songs (and there are plenty of them) are scattered through the film and none of them are awful. One in particular, where Richard woos Shizue, is actually pretty catchy, and the karaoke sequence (complete with on-screen lyrics and chintzy soft-focus performers) is eerily realistic. The decision to animate key sequences of the film (sometimes when live action would have been impossible) adds to the film’s character as well, and in the end you are left with something noboby but the most brave, adventurous director could have accomplished.
I’ve seldom seen anything to rival the originality and boldness of Happiness of the Katakuris, but I have to admit that I haven’t seen the Korean film it’s a remake of. I think I’m going to keep it that way, as I think watching The Quiet Family may lessen the enjoyment of this film, great though I’m sure it is.
Fortunately, I saw this a year or so before I saw Audition, which has kind of put me off experimenting with Takashi Miike’s films (it disturbed me greatly), but there’s no denying he has a serious talent for making films no one else would even dream of making. If you haven’t seen it already and want a strangely touching family movie with a few laughs, a few songs, and a few gruesome deaths, there can be no substitute.
Sheer genius.