THE HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS (Japan, 2001)
Directed by: Takashi Miike
Starring: Sawada Kenji, Nishida Naomi, Takeda Shinji, Matsuzaka Keiko, Kiyoshiro Imawano

2001 was the year the movies cried. We cried as Steven Spielberg re-released the charming ET: The Extraterrestrial, that story of a lovable, dwarfen alien touching the heart of a little boy. Sean Penn's brave performance as a retarded father in I Am Sam kindled a glow in our collective breast as we realized that the love of children is the common denominator that brings us all together. In this heartwarming tradition, Takashi Miike brings us The Happiness of the Katakuris, the touching story of a Japanese family who open a mountain inn in the name of family togetherness and, in an attempt to preserve their reputation, chop up their guests and bury them...bury them all!!!

Takashi Miike's mutant musical is an all-singing, all-dancing, all-dismemberment extravaganza of family values, caked with grime and grue. A full-out assault on logic and sentiment, it plays like the latest Monty Python movie, except meaner, and more blood-thirsty, and in Japanese. But wait! There's more! It's also a musical! Yes, sumo wrestlers may be rutting with schoolgirls, the cute animal inn may be entirely staffed by cute animals who work hard or they'll be eaten, corpses may get mutilated, people may get killed, but they get that way while singing and dancing.

Takashi Miike was hired to direct The Happiness of the Katakuris by Shochiku Studios as their annual feel-good New Year's family film. What on earth were they thinking? The film was the official Japanese adaptation of Korean director Kim Ji-Won's first film, a subtle, black comedy called The Quiet Family. Most Americans will be as shocked as Shochiku's executives were when they view what Miike has done, abducting Kim Ji-Won's movie and running deep into the freaky zone. And no one can make him leave.

Happiness is the most fun you'll have in a movie theater this summer; it's a movie with a high "Who cares?" quotient. Action scenes unfurl in claymation. When love songs begin, they sport helpful karaoke subtitles for audience sing-a-long. Controversial Japanese punk rocker Kiyoshiro Imawano turns in the most beautiful performance of the decade as the half-Japanese, half-American Naval officer, Richard Sagawa. Kiyoshiro had his punk version of the Japanese national anthem banned recently, but his performance as Richard Sagawa is a far graver assault on society.

An affront to everything decent and heartwarming in the universe, The Happiness of the Katakuris is a blast of anarchy that just happens to be the feel-good, fun-time movie of 2002.