Loosely based on the Korean black comedy, "Quiet Family", this extraordinary genre-blending remake tells the story of a modern dysfunctional family and their shared dream of opening an inn in the country. Despite all their best efforts, the inn has the unfortunate habit of attracting guests who all turn up dead in the morning. The Katakuris do their utmost to make a success of the place despite the growing number of guests now planted in the grove behind the house.

In tune with its quirky story, the film mixes movie genres and styles with abandon. Some sequences are filmed using claymation. As in a musical, the characters suddenly burst into song, or spontaneously start dancing as the mood takes them. There's even an incredible subplot with a Japanese conman who claims to be the bastard son of Queen Elizabeth of England.

The movie features an all-star cast chosen for their acting talent and their ability to carry a tune. Mr. Katakuri is played by Kenji Sawada, a star from his day with the rock band, the Tigers and as an actor ("The Man Who Stole The Sun", "Mishima"). Keiko Matsuzaka ("Sting Of Death", "Ping Pong") plays his long-suffering wife, Naomi Nishida ("Nabi's Love") plays the daughter and Shinji Takeda ("Gohatto", "Pulse", "Tokyo Eyes") takes on the role of the useless son. Rock star Kiyoshiro Imawano plays the slightly foreign-looking conman in a naval uniform.

A black comic musical that will have viewers cheering for the Katakuri family as they battle against the odds...and the bodies.

Just to be clear: warm-hearted dramatic comedy, claymation sequences, zombies, suicides, romance, musical. I guess add to that: fantasy.

If the word "musical" turns you off immediately, then good. You are normal. It doesn't matter how many academy awards a musical wins, we still know that we don't like them without having to go through the hassle of watching them. HOWEVER, and that's a big however, for the most part, the actors in The Happiness of the Katakuris cannot sing, at least not super well. Somehow, this works, and makes them more endearing. There are a couple of the cast that can sing, but we forgive them because it's really, really funny.

You want a bit of plot, don't you? Alright. There's this man and his wife who get their ex-juvenile delinquent son, their romantically frustrated daughter (who also brings her own daughter, their granddaughter), and their father (who is their son's and daughter's grandfather, and uh, their daughter's daughter's great grandfather). There is also a family dog of no particular relation. It's not as hard as I just said. There is Grandfather, Father and Mother, adult daughter, who has a daughter that is not an adult, and is very cute in the way she looks so serious when singing, the 20 year old (or so) aforementioned ex-delinquent son, and a dog. The dog's name is Poochie. Forget everyone else's name for now, as they're revealed in the movie. So, the guy I have referred to as Father, well he and his wife, well, mostly he, have/has a dream of turning their off-the-beaten-track country house into a bed and breakfast, and to live together as a family in love and happiness. The rest of the family takes some convincing (except his devoted wife, and Grandpa who, well, what else is he going to do, and Poochie who probably likes the country, one would think).

Problems start when their first client commits suicide in his rented room, with the stick that's on the end of his room's key chain. News of this event could be bad for business. What to do, what to do? A song perhaps?

You can guess what they do, if you noted the zombie aspect, and things get more and more outrageous, but this is not a by the numbers, mean spirited gore fest. Believe it or not, and I'm being quite serious, this is a warm story of a family sticking together through thick and thin.

Another incentive: the loveliest woman in the world is in this movie (the daughter - of course I'm talking about the adult daughter, you freak). It may very well be her character that I love, and not the actress herself. Anyway, you are allowed to agree that she is pretty, but you aren't allowed to like her. Go find your own damn woman. The musical number where she takes her daughter for ice cream, so she can in actual fact scope out guys (she's acting!), is shot so beautifully and is so funny and moving at the same time. You also get to meet the scoundrel Richard!

I love this movie. I love it so much I want to give it 5 stars, and I was going to, but I don't give out stars. If you don't like this movie, that's too bad. Maybe you should have rented it first. Maybe you can give it to a friend, if you have any, friends with taste that is.

One of my all time favorite movies from any country or genre, period. This is not a flat out promise that you will like The Happiness of the Katakuris. It's pretty different. I even have to confess that I am personally aware of people that don't like this movie. However, most of them aren't fans of cult Asian Cinema, and therefore don't really count. You will appreciate this film if you are a Takashi Miike fan. In fact, if you are a Miike fan, and don't like this movie, I would suggest that your Miike fan club membership be revoked, unceremoniously.

DO NOT BUY THIS FILM IF: You have never seen anything but what Hollywood tells you to see; you have a deep, unshakable belief that Teddy Bears cannot and would not kill; or you don't like originality and can't understand why anyone would want try something original.

RECOMMENDATION: Takashi Miike fans will love this, or at least gain a deeper repect for his talents. I seriously can't imagine why anyone would dislike this movie. But then, I don't fully understand Quantum Physics, either. I recommend this as one of the finest movies ever made. So there.

Masao Katakuri (Kenji Sawada) was a hard working, lowly shoe salesman until one day he was fired, and had to go home to his wife Peg and his two ungrateful kids who- wait, wrong shoe salesman. Masao, down on his luck but desperate to provide for his family, learns of a large house up in the mountains which is in close proximity to a proposed new road, which he is sure will bring many visitors to the beautiful area. He buys the house and uproots his family to this new location, so they can run the house as a guest house for tourists. He brings with him his faithful wife Terue, his father Jinpei (Tetsuro Tamba - Story of Ricky), his reluctant twenty-something son Masayuki, and his divorced daughter Shizue who in turn brings her adorable young daughter Yurie. This is not a happy family however and there are many tensions between them, Shizue was dumped by her husband while pregnant with Yurie and is getting increasingly desperate to bring a new man into her life and a new papa for her daughter. Masayuki is an angry young man who had trouble with the law in the past, and is the most resentful of being dragged up into the mountains away from civilisation and forced to work in what has proved so far to be a sadly unsuccessful venture. Masao is also extremely desperate, to make this a success after his being fired, he clearly does not want to let his family down. Just how determined he is to make the White Lover's Guest House a success will be put to the test soon enough.

One night a harsh storm tears through the area, and while the weather outside is inhospitable, they nevertheless gain their first guest! The sodden man glumly takes a room, refusing food but asking for a beer to be brought to his room. Masayuki takes the beer shortly after but the man asks him a strange question, that if the world was ending the next day, what would he do that night? We don't hear his answer, but later that night the sound of grinding can be heard coming from the man's room as he seems to be doing something to the plastic tag attached to the room key. The next day the guest does not come down for breakfast and when he also misses checking-out time, they go to wake him. When they can't get a response from him they open the door themselves, only to find that he has stabbed himself in the neck with the room key, seemingly committing suicide! They can't find his wallet either, and no small amount of suspicion is put upon Masayuki, whose criminal past is only hinted at, but was also the last to see the man alive. Nevertheless, something must be done with the body and while Terue wants to call the police, Masao is terrified that news of someone committing suicide in their guest house would stop anybody else from coming, and he cannot let that happen. They resolve to dispose of the body by burying it out next to the near-by lake, and speak nothing more of the incident.

While the body is being discovered, Shizue has taken Yurie into town and is treating her to ice cream when she sees a dashing stranger in a naval uniform. She gains the man's attention and he soon introduces himself as Richard Sagawa. He tells an absolutely ridiculous story of his past and what he does for a living – he is an officer in the US Navy, and of the Royal British Navy. He's also a British secret agent, and we later ‘discover' that his mother is the little known of half-sister of Queen Elizabeth. Poor Shizue is so taken with this stranger and so desperate for a man in her life however that she believes every single thing he tells her, and gives him the phone number and address of the guest house so he can come and visit. Meanwhile, with the unfortunate death behind them, the Katakuris welcome two more guests - a famous sumo wrestler and his teeny, tiny girlfriend. Excited that they have a celebrity guest staying with them, they put up with the incredible noise as the couple indulge in, er, sexual relations which end with an almighty crash. What they don't discover until the next morning is that the crash occurred when the mighty sumo suffered a fatal heart attack, unfortunately it takes them a while to realise that the man's poor girlfriend was also crushed and suffocated under his large frame. Even worse, the local police officer has just come to visit on his bicycle! A small man who isn't big enough for his bike or his uniform, he brings a questionnaire for them to fill in and a wanted poster to put up, which we see has a picture of Shizue's US British Naval Secret Agent member of the Royal Family on it! Barely avoiding disaster with two corpses upstairs and a policeman present, they family dispose of the bodies. Perhaps after these unfortunate occurrences, things will now go smoother for the Katakuris....

The idea of Takeshi Miike, the man behind such bizzare and violent cult favourites as Audition and Dead or Alive, adapting what was already a bizarre Korean black comedy seems difficult to comprehend. In fact, even after watching it, I don't find the idea or motivation for doing it much easier to fathom. You see, while The Quiet Family was an extremely black comedy with some mild horror overtones, Happiness of the Katakuris goes to similar extremes, only in a far more surreal direction. Miike is in fact a great fan of the original and was taken aback by the style and strangeness of it, so much so that he really wanted to take a crack at the same story, only in his own inimitably bizarre style. Indeed, the film starts with the strange adventures of a small winged creature, all rendered in claymation, and on more than one occasion it slips back into that form to tell short parts of the story. There is still much humour and many laughs are to be found thanks to a clever script, though again it is somewhat less black and is often of a more surreal nature. However the most surprising addition to the proceedings comes in the form of a series of musical numbers! Nothing can prepare you for various members of the cast breaking out into song and simple dance steps, and this is where the film veers totally away from the Korean original into a strange world of its own and comes from about as far from left field as is humanly possible.

Those who have seen the likes of the disturbing and surreal Audition will be thoroughly bewildered if they expect Katakuris to bare any resemblance to Miike's previous work, as what seems to be a desire to make each of his films different and unique has taken him to a place few could have expected. This film is bright and a hell of a lot of fun, helped enormously by the enthusiastic performances by the cast both in their acting and during the numerous musical moments. While The Quiet Family was a very darkly comic film, this concentrates far less on the deaths of those visitors to the guest house and more on the various characters, particularly the relationships between the various family members. Miike wanted to explore the idea of a family that lives together, but that togetherness only exists on a physical level, and there are many issues under the surface dividing them, and that aspect of the film is well-realised. Miike also impresses by making this a group of very engaging characters, the loving father who desperately wants to provide for his family, the loving wife who is utterly devoted to her husband and family, the wily grandfather who watches his family from a bemused patriarchal position, the frustrated son who is conflicted between being angry with his father while still loving his family, and the lonely daughter who feels like her life is empty without a partner and father for Yuri. Each family member is treated warmly by the script and direction, and each go through changes as the film goes on, whether is finding redemption for oneself or realising the importance of family, each of them are lead to a greater peace which gives the film a sense of touching and good-natured intention towards them.

The musical performances serve to make the Katakuris more endearing also, performed in the style of enthusiastic amateurs rather than highly trained dancers as they cavort about the place, this is not Gene Kelly suddenly tap dancing effortlessly wherever he happens to be. However the songs are also used to further the story, break moments of tension, and give us a deeper look at how one or more characters are feeling about a situation. One fine example of this is when Shizue first encounters Richard Sagawa, suddenly all the local people quickly assemble as backing dancers, Richard flies into the air, and Shizue pictures him whisking her away from a wedding before she can marry someone else, and performs the rest of the number in a wedding dress – the bold images use are a true highlight and give the film a peculiar surreal edge. The musical numbers are expertly handled in both choreography and the style in while they are shot, no two numbers really look the same as Miike uses many different backdrops in while to stage the scenes. Even if the performers aren't highly skilled, the direction and production is very crisp and certainly brings a highly polished look to the proceedings, another aspect of the film that is particularly surprising considering Miike's extremely gritty prior filmography.

Those thinking that his is Miike selling out to the mainstream, however, would still have a difficult time arguing such a case, as this still contains large doses of Miike's special brand of weirdness. This can be seen almost immediately as the film jumps into the aforementioned claymation introduction which segues into our introduction to our central characters. The claymation comes into play a on other occasions during the course of the films and goes a long way to cement the uniqueness of this film. There are also moments of surreal humour, including a hilarious scene when the family is watching TV, switching between a channel featuring a famous old actress (obviously a man in drag singing dreadfully) and a news feature where the reporter's work becomes more difficult when a fly crawls up his nose and he vainly attempts to carry on. While still a trifle odd, the film really has a sense that it was as much fun to make as it is to watch, taking joy in both entertaining and confusing the viewer. The surreal nature of the film does confuse things just a teeny bit towards the end of the film it has to be said, but the conclusion is satisfying enough to negate the seriousness of any lapses in the narrative.

Be prepared, this is an extremely oddball, surreal and at times confusing movie which is not going to appeal to everybody. Some will have trouble with what seems to be a uniquely Japanese style of surreal humour, but perseverance will pay off as though this is based on another film, it is a highly entertaining and unique film in its own right which has enough innovation, humour, excellent performances, and high production values to really stand out as a great achievement in world cinema. Takeshi Miike does not seem to be a director to rest on his laurels and his continued innovation and attempts to vary his output as much as possible has paid of magnificently well here. Not truly representative of his full body of work, but undoubtedly a highlight and I can highly recommend this wonderful look into the Katakuris' world

When that first customer finally comes, it arrives in the form of a suicidal man. They cover up his could-be-misconstrued death to avoid any bad press. But then their second clients, a sumo wrestler and his young teen groupie, also die and the bodies start piling up. Lonely Shizue is taken under the sway of a gigolo, the self professed Navy officer and bastard member of the Royal Family, Richard Sagawa. The police start sniffing around. The road is finally coming but its construction goes through where the bodies are buried. Jilted crazed lovers run amok. The earth quakes and mountains rumble, and they will have to be family to survive it all.

Now, this is what a remake should be, a re-imagining of sorts, taking the same basic story and molding into something completely fresh. Takashi Miike’s Happiness of the Katakuris takes the Korean black comedy The Quiet Family and shapes it into a maniacal musical comedy fantasy. The same basic premise is there, a celebration of family and life amidst comic death, only now deft story changes and the addition of musical numbers make Katakuris and altogether different animal than the film that inspired it.

The cast is perfect, each embodying their roles with their particular character quirk, be it the nerve addled father, the doting earth other, the lovelorn daughter, or the crow killing upbeat grandfather.

It would be nice if the music were a little more catchy. Mainly the numbers are brief, little explosions of song. The songs that work best are the more full scale production numbers like Ma and Pa Katakuris love ballad (complete with sing-along karaoke lyrics on the screen) or Shizue’s imaging of Richard Sagawa wooing her. But, for me anyway, there weren’t any songs that stuck out as very catchy or particularly memorable, some were even a bit off-putting and too clumsy. It is strange, despite how odd and imaginative the film is, little things like the dancing corpses in a musical number seem like they could have been even more outrageous and funny. Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You pulled off this combo of catchy tunes in offbeat settings much better (like a memorable ghosts at a funeral number). Still, even if the songs aren’t catchy, there is a roughness to the largely non-musical cast and a sloppiness that works in their characters favor because of their pure earnestness. The real standout would have to be Kiyoshiro Imawano as Richard Sagawa, an actual singer, albeit an oddball Japanese one with a sort of rockin’ Tom Jones meets William Shatner kind of quality.

But, Takashi Miike’s sensibilities make it an entertaining affair. In terms of tone it is quite different from his blood soaked new wave gangster tales that have made him a cult icon, like the Dead or Alive series and Ichi the Killer, but he has shown himself as proficient in other genres, like horror with Audition and more traditional fare like Bird People of China. Katakuris belongs more in the vein of Visitor Q, death-rot black comedies with a familial subject matter. His changes in the originals plotting work quite well, the younger son with a shady past, the lothario Richard Sagawa is far more amusing than the horny hiker in Quiet Family. Miike’s penchant for black comedy is just a whole lot of fun, from a bizarre use of claymation, the dire cataclysm that unites them, and little touches like a tv reporter trying to ignore a fly that goes up his nose, or the family trying to figure out how to move the massive sumo wrestlers body. The real minus points I have to give the movie are that overall the original is better due to,... well, I simply thought Quiet Family was funnier and the musical numbers aren’t as effective as they could be with some catchier tunes.

The Happiness of the Katakuris is the Japanese musical remake of the Korean dark comedy (that also happens to be a far better film) The Quiet Family. Thusly, what little plot there is resembles that of its Korean predecessor, with some changes. As in any remake, some of the changes are good, some brilliant, and some awful. It opens with a mass of large Japanese women entering through a doorway into a restaurant. A girl sits, trying to eat her soup, but there is some obstruction in the middle. The obstruction is shown as a clay demon with two bulging eyes, and the world turns to clay around it. I won’t even bother to explain where Miike takes this, though it’s really quite well done, because it has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the film. The sequence, taking up the first 5 or 10 minutes, is the most random and absurd thing I’ve ever seen. No, I take that back. But it was before I finished the film. Explaining the plot really is not worthwhile; the film’s most enjoyable moments come from its surprises. Loosely, though, it’s about a family running a guesthouse in the middle of no where. For a long time, they have no guests, and when they start to show up they die. If you’ve seen The Quiet Family, the first half should be pretty predictable, and the second half will baffle everyone with its random absurdity. And it’s all gut-wrenchingly funny.

Aside from some of the musical numbers, the few minutes of seriousness towards the end, and the singing zombies, Miike’s visual direction is the only bright point of this remake. The claymation was undoubtedly his idea, and those are the only sequences he seems to enjoy himself with. The rest of the film has its share of Miike’s typically beautiful composition and stylistic effects. Again, if you know Miike films, you know what to expect. If you don’t, there’s no way to prepare you. But he does prove yet again why he’s so widely respected as a visual director. Unfortunately, his usual knack for weaving well composed stories, even if they’re nearly impossible to unravel, is gone from Katakuris.

The actors give surprisingly good performances in their shallow roles. As the eldest member of the family, and often the narrator between verses in the musical numbers, Tetsuro Tanba captures the feeling of a sometimes angry, but always loveable, old man. I really wanted his ascension at the end to have some meaning, but for some reason Miike didn’t feel like it. His son, and father of a love-seeking single mom Shizue (Naomi Nishida) and ex-convict (Shinji Takeda), played by Kenji Sawada, is by far the best singer of the group. And in the few moments of seriousness towards the end, before its wacky, meaningless ending, he and his wife (Keiko Matsuzaka) show that they are actually somewhat talented actors. You wouldn’t really know it from the rest of the film, though.

The actors often really overplay things and, if the claymation, singing, dancing, and general absurdity didn’t do it, that over-reacting completely takes away the best part of the Korean film – how seemingly naturally the characters reacted to these terrible things, and how funny it was to see it happen. Because there, the situations seem almost real. Here, the complete unreality and separation is at times charming, but really overall it leaves you with a perplexed stare on your face. The worst things about this film are also probably it’s strongest points. The absurdity is constantly amusing, and there are moments that will have you falling out of your chair laughing. But it’s not a film you’ll want to watch twice, probably, and if you’re acquainted with Miike’s usual genius you’ll most likely be disappointed. For Miike fanatics, and those who want to see his wackiness without loads of gore, this is a worthwhile viewing. If not, see it at your own risk. Most people have loved it or hated it—I still don’t really know where I stand.