People are voting emotionally.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

A typically irreverent and offbeat Japanese musical comedy from one of that country's most eclectic directors, Takashi Miike. I previously watched DEADLY OUTLAW REKKA last week and was disappointed in its predictability and lack of outrageous eccentricity that Miike is best known for, so I came to THE HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS in two minds, hoping to enjoy it and hoping it wouldn't let me down, knowing that Miike films can be all over the place tonally. The good news: it didn't let me down; far from it! This is a unique stab at musical cinema, with a plot that somehow manages to incorporate claymation, zombies, murder, death and a volcano. The setting is a seemingly idyllic hotel run by a family of diverse characters, who find out that their guests keep on dying strange deaths. Rather than calling the police or getting upset at the impact on future bookings, they decide to bury the bodies in the local forest while taking part in one song-and-dance number after another.The film is filled from beginning to end with verve and vitality and the music numbers really zing, proving real highlights. The whole film has a bright and colourful look and feel to it and lashings of black comedy only add to the appeal. It truly is an anything-goes experience and one that's hugely entertaining from start to finish; a more original piece of film-making I haven't seen all year.

'The Happiness of the Katakuris' may be a remake (to the very sober and also amazing 'Quiet Family' from the highly talented Ji-woon Kim) but it does not rehash the original. Instead it turns it upside down to create a movie that manipulates the same plot with very different results. Miike adds his trippy aesthetics to the story, adds more characters and takes the viewer on a very strange journey that can only be described as a dark musical comedy. Dead bodies keep piling but that is precisely the thrust for the family to break into song and dance routines, at times even with karaoke lines. Hilarity is never absent and lends an aura of surrealism along with the odd clay animation sequences.The movie is exuberant and completely over the top with parodies aimed at plenty of conventions such as sugary love declarations (including a very gullible young mother) and final last words speeches. Somewhere along the line there are even singing and dancing zombies neatly in tune with the family, all joined in a jarringly positive song that seems to poke fun at the obsession of being upbeat that seems so prevailing in Japanese culture.And yet throughout the insanity emerges a surprisingly moving story about family bonds. The end confirms this even as it takes the movie to a whole new level of pure weirdness. 'The Happiness of the Katakuris' is a genuinely original take on family centered cinema and for mingling such disparate elements it deserves respect.

At times this movie was rather enjoyable, at other times it got to be a tad tedious, and still other times you stare at the screen in amazement thinking to yourself that this movie is really messed up. Welcome to the movie "Happiness of the Katakuri's" which is the title I bought this movie under. A movie about a family trying to make an inn work in the middle of nowhere and getting no customers, and then finally they get their break and they have a string of customers only to have tragedy strike again and again. Some scenes are really funny, some scenes make no sense this movie runs a gambit of being this and that during its runtime. Then there are scenes that really make me wonder what the heck they were thinking, mainly all the claymation scenes which they did not even really attempt to make those look real. Granted seeing the dog in claymation was funny and I am guessing they did it because I know that final scene would have been very difficult using real actors. Still, that opening scene with the creature in the soup seemed a tad pointless to the whole movie. The musical numbers were somewhat good, usually the ones involving the bodies and such were best, the one involving the husband and wife seemed a bit to long and really was not all that funny. So an okay movie, loved the discovery of the sumo guy, the scene of the family that looked sickly and needed cord, and the wound the son got in the end. Maybe a bit of reworking and taking a bit of runtime off this movie would have made it more entertaining as a whole instead of having a few dead spots that brought this one down a notch.

Takashi Miike is the kind of director who makes you confront the grotesque, the beautiful, the exciting and the mundane all in one sitting. His other films often contain moments which, for the faint of heart, may be a moment of Bataillean transgression; something no doubt likely to become a summit experience. 'Happiness of the Katakuris' isn't one of them. It's not as shocking as 'Audition', not as frenetic as 'Dead or Alive' and certainly not as grotesque as 'Ichi the Killer'. It's different. Some might even say better than his other works. 'Happiness..' is an example of ingenuity within the bounds of what might normally have been the mundane. The story is essentially a simple one. A family start up a hotel in a mountainous region of Japan, and for a while they have no customers. Just when they begin to worry a guest turns up. Unfortunately things go awry, as he appears to have only chosen their hotel to commit suicide. From that point on things get from bad to worse for the family and their hotel. It's a simple enough premise, but Miike really builds on it and mixes in cheesy songs, spontaneous dance routines complete with operatic gestures, zombies, hyperbolised family drama and, surprisingly, claymation. The cinematography is, as one might expect from Miike, excellent. There's a wide array of beautifully shot sequences showing off Japan's stunning rural landscapes, and there's camera work during the musical routines which perfectly mimic any famous musical film productions you'd care to think of. Miike also excels himself with his use of wonderfully rendered and skillfully executed claymation sequences, similar to those found in Kazuaki Kiriya's masterpiece 'Casshern', or Gen Sekiguchi's 'Survive Style 5'. The acting is, frankly, excellent. There's little room for criticism. Regardless of whether the cast were performing surreal song and dance routines, engaging in heated family disputes or making jokes at the dinner table, the actors are fantastic. They really help to add substance and humour to the movie. Those playing the Katakuri family are all perfectly cast. The grandfather, the daughter and the desperate father are a pleasure to watch, as they add nuances and depth to their characters, and by extension, the family itself. Special mention also goes to the actor playing the 'foreign' military officer and the daughter's love interest; he's probably one of the most amusing characters I've ever come across. He had me in stitches on several occasions! There's so much off-the-wall humour and cinematic ingenuity that it's hard not to be impressed by this movie. Frankly, when I first had heard mention of this film I was very sceptical, ''A zombie musical? Surely not!'', but once I sat down and began to watch it, I was in awe. From the strangely endearing opening claymation sequence to the epic finale, 'Happiness of the Katakuris' is a film well worth a watch. Whether you're a fan of Takashi Miike, a fan of East Asian cinema, a fan of strange movies or just looking to watch something different, I strongly urge you to watch this movie.