​THE HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS [FILM GUTTER REVIEWS]

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.

​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.

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