The Happiness of the Katakuris Rating: Release Date: 25 February, 2003 Retail Price: $24.99 OUR Price: $22.99 You SAVE: $2.00! Cast: Naoto Takenaka Naomi Nishida

The Happiness of the Katakuris Reviews

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The Only Miike I Like
A remake of Ji-woon Kim's THE QUIET FAMILY / CHOYONGHAN KAJOK and reminiscent of Danny Boyle's SHALLOW GRAVE, Miike's film features one of the most eccentric families since George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's "You Can't Take It With You." The Katakuris run a Bed & Breakfast in the middle of the Japanese countryside where their rare guests have a habit of dying. This leaves the family with the typical "how do we dispose of the bodies?" dilemmas. Meanwhile, Shizue Katakura (Naomi Nishida)--mother of our narrator Yurie--also has the added difficulty of being romanced by a maniac (Kiyoshiro Imawano).

With occasional claymation scenes, effects-heavy musical numbers, and dark humour, Miike's penchant for overstylization proves to be helpful to HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS and not a hindrance. When putting this list together, I knew that we'd have a Takashi Miike movie on here somewhere; it was just a matter of narrowing down the selection to a lone title from the ridiculously prolific director. Quite often Miike's films feature more style than substance--and more disturbing images than anything else. Frustrated with GOZU, disgusted with DEAD OR ALIVE, and demoralized by ICHI THE KILLER, the musical comedy THE HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS proved to be the only Miike film I'd want to see multiple times.

Miike's funnest film.
This is quite possibly the funniest movie I have ever seen. I don't know how to do it, but I'm sure as a whole the film connects to itself in some way. But it starts with... I don't know. Something very weird and, dare I say it, cute? Anyways, if you want to laugh and appreciate that trademark musk Miike has on all his films, without the violence, Happiness could not be a better choice. By far the funniest film I've seen since Zoolander... and wayyyyyy more crazy.

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