The Happiness of the Katakuris

The Happiness of the Katakuris (カタクリ家の幸福, Katakuri-ke no Kōfuku) is a 2001 Japanese musical comedy horror film directed by Takashi Miike, with screenplay by Kikumi Yamagishi. It is loosely based on the South Korean film The Quiet Family. The film is a surreal horror-comedy in the farce tradition, which includes claymation sequences, musical and dance numbers, a karaoke-style sing-along scene, and dream sequences.

The Happiness of the Katakuris
Theatrical release poster
Directed byTakashi Miike
Screenplay byKikumi Yamagishi[1]
Produced by
  • Hirotsugu Yoshida
  • Tetsuo Sasho[1]
Starring
CinematographyAkio Nomura[1]
Edited byYasushi Shimamura[1]
Music by
Production
company
Release dates
Running time
113 minutes[2]
CountryJapan[1]
LanguageJapanese

The film won a Special Jury Prize for its director at the 2004 Gérardmer Film Festival and has received generally positive reviews from critics.

Plot

The Katakuris are a four-generation family of failures: patriarch Masao Katakuri (Kenji Sawada), his wife Terue (Keiko Matsuzaka), his father Jinpei (Tetsurō Tamba), his formerly criminal son Masayuki (Shinji Takeda), his divorced daughter Shizue (Naomi Nishida), her child Yurie (Tamaki Miyazaki, who narrates the film), and their dog, Pochi. The family uses the father's redundancy pay to purchase a large old home situated on a former garbage dump near Mount Fuji that they have named the ‘White Lover's Inn'. They have the intention of converting it into a bed and breakfast, since the road running nearby is supposed to be expanded up to the house, which would bring many guests and tourists. However, the road hasn't been expanded yet and the Katakuris subsequently have no guests. When one finally shows up, he subsequently commits suicide during the night, and the Katakuris make the decision to save their business by burying the body and concealing the death. The second guest, a Sumo wrestler, also dies of a heart attack during a tryst with his much younger girlfriend, who also dies.

Somehow, each of their guests ends up dead—by suicide, accident or murder—and pretty soon the bodies in the back yard begin to pile up. The Katakuris soon find themselves sucked into a nightmare of lies and fear.

Meanwhile, the recently divorced daughter falls in love with a man calling himself Richard Sagawa (Kiyoshiro Imawano), a U.S. naval officer who claims to be the nephew of Queen Elizabeth II herself. Just when Richard stumbles onto a clue that might lead him to uncover the string of disappearing guests, a nearby volcano begins rumbling to life.

Cast
ActorRole
Kenji SawadaMasao Katakuri
Keiko MatsuzakaTerue Katakuri
Shinji TakedaMasayuki Katakuri
Naomi NishidaShizue Katakuri
Kiyoshiro ImawanoRichard Sagawa
Tetsurō TambaJinpei Katakuri
Naoto TakenakaTelevision Reporter
Tamaki MiyazakiYurie Katakuri
Takashi MatsuzakiUtanoumi

Release

The Happiness of the Katakuris was first shown in Japan at the Tokyo International Film Festival in October 2001.[3][4] The Happiness of the Katakuris was released theatrically in Japan on February 16, 2002.[5]

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 64%, based on 28 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "If nothing else, Happiness of the Katakuris scores points for its delirious, over-the-top originality."[6] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 60 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "Mixed or average reviews".[7] Kim Newman (Sight & Sound) stated that "Like many of Miike's efforts...[the film] feels all too much like the work of someone who had seven other films on his mind, not all of which he crams into his current project". Newman commented on the acting, noting that "The performances are all fine, but the individual players sometimes seem to be competing for screen space rather than building an ensemble."[8] The review found that the "one-damn-thing-after-another progression straggles on a reel too long, delaying the inevitable and pleasing volcanic eruption finale with a hostage-taking psychopath who only pops in to drag things out until the big bang."[8]

A second review in Sight & Sound described the film as "Wilful, kitsch and eccentric" and "Miike's oddest and most infuriating film yet."[9]

Notes
  1. "The Happiness of the Katakuris". Vitagraph Films. Retrieved 6 May 2016.
  2. "The Happiness of the Katakuris (15)". British Board of Film Classification. 27 January 2003. Retrieved 25 August 2016.
  3. "TIFF History" (in Japanese). Tokyo International Film Festival.
  4. Murguia 2016, p. 113.
  5. Mes 2006, p. 396.
  6. "The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 6 May 2016.
  7. "The Happiness of the Katakuris". Metacritic. Retrieved 6 May 2016.
  8. Newman, Kim (June 2003). "The Happiness of the Katakuris". Sight & Sound. Vol. 13, no. 6. British Film Institute. pp. 47–48. ISSN 0037-4806.
  9. Macnab, Geoffrey (December 2003). "The Happiness of the Katakuris". Sight & Sound. Vol. 13, no. 12. British Film Institute. p. 64. ISSN 0037-4806.

References
  • Mes, Tom (2006). Agitator: The Cinema of Takashi Miike. FAB Press. ISBN 1903254418.
  • Murguia, Salvador (2016). The Encyclopedia of Japanese Horror Films. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1442261679.
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