​THE HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS (2001)
The Katakuri family relocates to establish a rustic mountain inn, but their plans are derailed when their guests meet with untimely deaths.
Release date: 16 February 2002 (Japan)
Director: Takashi Miike
Music by: Koji Endo; Kouji Makaino;
Language: Japanese
Production company: Shochiku
Cinematography: Akio Nomura

A Film Gutter Review by Alex Davis 

It’s on to our third week of Takashi Miike month, and today we’re looking back at a film that I remember as ranking among the strangest I ever saw – mind you, that was a while back, and a lot of water has passed under the bridge. And floating in that water were a lot of very bizarre movies. Still, I was looking forward to a revisit of this one, which has the distinctive honour of being one of a very exclusive list of musicals I actually liked. That particular list comprises South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, Team America: World Police and Anna and the Apocalypse, so what I say exclusive I mean it. Anyway, on with The Happiness of the Katakuris…

Happiness is a surreal, and significantly darker, parody of the likes of The Sound of Music, with the Katakuri family opening up a guest house in a location set to take advantage of a new road being built. Business is slow at first, and the tensions and cracks among the family are starting to show until a handful of initial visitors arrive to stay. However, things are off to an inauspicious start when the first guest commits suicide in his room, and sadly much worse is yet to come as one client after another dies in the guest house. Alongside all this we have family dramas, a splash of romance and plenty of songs too. There’s no arguing this is a flat-out musical – the cast break out into song at some truly odd moments, including when they find the body of their first guest after he’s killed himself. The numbers themselves are catchy, but obviously made for comedic effect, and I found myself generally laughing in the right places, though at times I did feel like this one was maybe trying a bit hard. For my mind, it’s also way too long at the better part of two hours – you could easily have done this as a snappy, short hour and a half and trimmed out some of what I would consider the fluff along the way. By the end of proceedings, I did feel like my attention was definitely wandering and things were starting to get indulgent.

It’s a testament to Miike that not only has he had such a lengthy and successful career, but also that he’s a sort of cinematic chameleon – in three weeks we’ve already seen a broad range of styles, and that’s without getting into his many dramas, yakuza films, samurai movies and more besides. I couldn’t comfortably call The Happiness of the Katakuris a misstep, but it wouldn’t be my favourite of his movies, and I think it has shrunk a little in my mind with this rewatch. Some of it is funny, for sure, and it has the trademark Miike freshness and weirdness. But what had stuck in my mind were very much highlights, and there’s a lot I had forgotten because it just ultimately wasn’t all that memorable. If you’re up for a bizarre, unorthodox musical with plenty of death and drama, this is a solid watch for you. but if you were asking me to pick you out a Takashi Miike film to watch, this one has its merits but would be a fair way down the list – a testament to just how good the director’s work has tended to be.

​RATING: 6.5/10. Parts of this movies are tremendous fun, and it’s likely you’ve never seen anything much like it – at least I’m not aware of anything like it out there, though I’m more than willing to be corrected. But I would definitely say parts, and that maybe the longer runtime means that things are thrown in that are unnecessary and dare I say that it just gets a bit too silly here and there. It still ranks well within my top five musicals, but then again, my typical ratings for musicals would be way, way down the scale – they’re simply just not my bag. This one is definitely an interesting curio, and another feather in the cap of Takashi to make and get funding to get made, but there would be better entries in the filmography to check out.

Fiction begins to bleed into reality for actors (Ebizô Ichikawa, Ko Shibasaki, Hideaki Ito) as they rehearse a stage production of a classic Japanese ghost story.
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Release date: 23 August 2014 (Japan)
Director: Takashi Miike
Music by: Koji Endo

As we mentioned last week, Miike is not only a prolific director, but one who has worked across a multitude of genres over the years. I’d personally argue that in terms of international appeal his horror movies as well among the best-known – maybe Yakuza and samurai films just don’t travel quite as well beyond Japan. Last time around we looked at the brilliant Audition, which was a rewatch, but Over Your Dead Body is entirely new on me. And while this wouldn’t necessarily by the most violent of Miike’s films, there’s a massive amount to like here regardless.

Over Your Dead Body centres on the cast of a play, Yotsuya Kwaidan, a classic-style Japanese ghost story centring on a samurai character who disgraces his wife, a character who is ultimately destined to return as a vengeful spirit. The play within the film is gorgeously presented and is something you’d probably be more than willing to watch as a piece in its own right. However, the main conceit of the film is that, while the play is going on, the actors find themselves drawn into a real-life scenario that bears a starting similarity to the fictional content. The star of the play, Miyuki, manages to land her lover Kosuke a leading role despite him being a relatively unknown actor. But soon enough Kosuke and Miyuki find themselves the focus of attraction of their co-stars, and a dark story of twisted romance and betrayal begins to spin out into real life also.

The plot isn’t that easy to summarise, because the movie deliberately blurs the lines between fantasy and fiction, and there’s every bit as much focus on the play as there is the real-life horror starting to play out. Both elements are equally fascinating, and of course the two threads come together very closely in a really unsettling finale. It has many of the tenets of a classic Japanese ghost story, but it does have that distinctly Miike styling, with some graphic scenes along the way and some non-traditional narrative elements. It’s one of those strange offerings that I have to say I didn’t fully grasp but still enjoyed mightily nonetheless – it feels like it might well be something to warrant a rewatch to try and fully understand all its layers.

There are some very strong acting performances here, and visually the whole thing just feels dreamy, or maybe more nightmarish, with lots of darkness throughout punctuated with only limited amounts of light. The costumes are gorgeous too, and that all adds up to a really heady mix in the hands of a master director.

There is a sort of stylistic similarity to Audition here, in that we begin very slow-burn before really going full-tilt as we head inexorably towards the finale. There are also some similar themes here, and the two do make a ‘piece’ quite nicely – although I certainly can’t claim to be the first to make that comparison. It’s a very fine addition to the Miike cannon, and it’s very much haunted me ever since I watch it – if you’ll excuse the pun. I’m sure those of you with a finer grasp of Japanese culture will get even more out of it than me as well.

RATING: 9/10. This one is certainly more subtle than some of the director’s other work but loses nothing for it – Miike seems to be able to turn his hand to virtually anything and still achieve remarkable artistic and critical success. Part old-fashioned Japanese ghost story, part true-life interpersonal horror unfolding to a shocking climax, this is a fascinating blend of two vastly different things and a very worthy take on both. It’s also very intricate, and I suspect I’ll be coming back a second time to try and really pick up on all its nuances. Despite that, I was pretty blown away by the time this one came to a close. If you’d like to check it out, it’s up to watch for free on Amazon Prime, and I’d suggest going for a look!

Audition

This disturbing Japanese thriller follows Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi), a widower who decides to start dating again. Aided by a film-producer friend (Jun Kunimura), Aoyama uses auditions for a fake production to function as a dating service. When Aoyama becomes intrigued by the withdrawn, gorgeous Asami (Eihi Shiina), they begin a relationship. However, he begins to realize that Asami isn't as reserved as she appears to be, leading to gradually increased tension and a harrowing climax.

Release date: 16 March 2001 (United Kingdom)
Director: Takashi Miike
Adapted from: Audition
Box office: $131,296 (United States)
Music by: Kōji Endō
Language: Japanese​

A Film Gutter Review from Alex Davis 

Over the better part of six years of reviewing here at Film Gutter, we’ve covered an awful lot, taking in some of the best known in extreme horror as well as more obscure and cult favourites. But remarkably – and this was something that only occurred to me very recently – we have yet to cover anything from a filmmaker I love in the form of Takashi Miike. How could this be? I just don’t have any explanation for why this should be the case, but I thought this Hallowe’en season would be a fine moment to make up for it with a series of reviews bringing focus to the director’s darker work. I should say before we begin that I am of course aware that Miike has a long and extensive body of work which cuts across many genres, but for our purposes we’re going to be diving head-first into the stranger end of things – kicking off with one of his most acclaimed movies, Audition.

And I will kick off by saying this – if you haven’t seen Audition yet, go and watch it first and read this review later on. This is one of those movies that is very much best watched knowing little to nothing about it. If you’ve seen it already, or are happy and willing to have this one spoiled for you, then feel free to press on…

So, Audition begins with Shigeharu Aoyama, who works as a senior part of a movie company and is growing increasingly lonely after the death of his wife some years before. With an associate, he cooks up the idea of ‘auditioning’ a series of women for a movie that’s very unlikely to get made, but with an ulterior motive – he is in effect ‘auditioning’ for a new life partner. There, he falls for shy, quiet Asami Yamazaki, and calls her after the audition to set up some drinks. Things seem to go well from there – despite some misgivings on the vagueness of her past from his friend and colleague – until Asami seemingly disappears from the face of the earth. Aoyama goes looking for her only to find that a trail of darkness and tragedy has seemingly followed her around, and that some of what she gave as her background isn’t quite true. But when the two do meet up and take things to the next level, things are about to get seriously twisted…

This is a movie with a fine reputation, and the last time I saw it was about twenty years ago, so this was an interesting one to revisit. Those few detractors of the movie would claim that the finale makes little sense, or comes out of nowhere – perhaps it does to an extent, but this is absolutely by design. The shadows surrounding Asami are always there, but only truly become clear in the last quarter of an hour. Much of the movie is on the surface a romantic drama – a well-made one, but not the sort of thing I would usually seek out. The change of gear as we conclude this piece is pretty legendary, and Miike shows off that dark imagination to great effect as we draw the film to a close. It’s wild, disturbing and unsettling, and that’s probably why it’s best seen with no foreknowledge – I was lucky enough to know nothing about it before that initial watch, and it was a real treat being absolutely blindsided as I was.

There is a huge amount to like here – the acting performances are strong, particularly from Eihi Shiina as Asami, who treads the line wonderfully of quiet and innocent before turning utterly psychopathic in the finale. Both sides of her character are utterly believable to boot. The visuals are spot on, particularly in the unforgettable finale, where things hit one after the other like a dream or a fantasy, taking some time to piece together. Patience is important here – the movie is a real slow-burn, but when it clicks into gear it goes from 0-100 in no time. The pacing is very much a conscious decision, and asks the viewer to come on board with it – and if you can it’s almost certain you’ll be rewarded. For me this is distinctly one of Miike’s best horror movies, and probably one of the best Japanese horror movies ever made full stop – and you can rest assured that’s some serious competition.

RATING: 10/10. What else is there to say? Audition is surely the masterwork from one of Japan’s most acclaimed directors, simultaneously a slow-paced rumination on love and gender relations in the country with a brutal story bubbling underneath the whole time that explodes in an ending to fit in with some of Japan’s most extreme offerings. Even on a second watch I was transfixed, left shell-shocked in my seat when the credits rolled. It’s no revelation to say this is an extremely good film, and if you’ve not made time to watch it yet you should do so – it’s up to watch on both Shudder and BFIPlayer, so go seek it out!