14th April 2004 | The happiness of the Katakuris
Another film recommendation, this time for a glorious Japanese comedy/musical/horror featuring zombies, suicide, claymation and one of the sweetest families you’ll ever see on screen.
“The happiness of the Katakuris” (just “Happiness of the Katakuris” in the US and “Katakuri-ke no kôfuku” in Japan) is a cheerfully absurd mish mash of great musical numbers, slapstick comedy, black humour and out-and-out horror. The film tells the story of the Katakuri family and their attempts to set up a guest house in a remote, mountainous region of Japan. Unfortunately for the Katakuris the road to their guest house hasn’t been built yet, so customers are scarce…and those that do take a room have a nasty habit of dying in the night.
After their first guest commits suicide the unlucky Katakuris decide it’d be better for business if they covered up the death rather than go to the police…and that’s where the fun starts. Soon customers are dropping like flies, and the burial ground near the house is rapidly filling up with rotting corpses.
Unfortunately the family’s bad luck doesn’t end there. Deceased guests soon begin to rise from their graves, one of the Katakuri daughters falls in love with a con man, the police begin to realise something is up, and it soon begins to look like disposing of the corpses wasn’t such a great idea after all.
Throughout all this the family periodically burst in to song, and dance away like a Japanese version of the Von Trapps (in fact the location, colour scheme and even some of the scenes from the film are lovingly lifted from “The Sound of Music”). The musical numbers are entertaining, hilarious and they illustrate what the film is really all about: a family doing it’s best to stay together through adversity.
And that’s the best thing about “The happiness of the Katakuris” - at the end of the day it’s basically a heartwarming story of a family and how their love for each other gets them through hard times. Despite dancing zombies, some disgusting claymation and a bizarre plot, it’s ultimately a feel good film that’ll have you grinning like a loon by the time the curtain closes. It’s twisted and weird, but touching, warm and wonderful at the same time.