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| THE HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS. Starring - Kenji Sawada - Naomi Nishida - Keiko Matsuzaka - Shinji Takeda. Director - Takashi Miike. 2001. The happiness of the Katakuris is a remake of the brilliant ‘Quiet family’, focussing on the Katakuri family as they try and make a success out of there recently purchased guesthouse. Things aren’t running as smooth as the family expects though after the first few guests all die during their first night. In a bid to avoid any distressing publicity the family make a decision to dispose of the bodies themselves. Without giving too much away things go from bad to worse for the family as they try and conceal their impromptu burial services. Just what kind of drugs is Takashi Miike taking? Not content with simply remaking the movie he has added his own distinctive flavour and brought the most bizarre film I have ever seen to life. He has taken the surrealism of the original added some claymation thrown in a pinch of Karaoke and then phoned up Julie Andrews for advise on staging a beautifully choreographed dance routine. Sounds weird? It is, trust me you will have never seen anything like this before and I doubt you will ever see it’s ilk ever again. It’s a musical, it’s a comedy, it’s a drama it’s fucking mental. Not Jack Nicholson mental but Benny Hill on acid mental. The only reason this isn’t going to get a 10 star rating is simply because it wont travel too well and I know that some people will complain about the sheer absurdity of it all. Fans of Miikes more violent movies for example may be disappointed to see him embark on a full on comedy, I however am glad to see him make a departure from his usual material. Not that I don’t like these movies far from it. I just felt that it was about time he showed what else he had up those big baggy sleeves of his. I loved the Korean movie ‘The quiet family’ so when I got a hold of Takashi Miikes remake I really had no idea what to expect, after all like most people I am more familiar with his Yakuza fuelled blood fests. The original movie is quite a dark comedy whereas this one is slap-bang in your face at a hundred miles an hour. From sumo suffocation to choreographed corpse dance routines, things couldn’t get much more surreal than this. And I loved it, every single minute. 9*********stars. |
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