The Happiness of the Katakuris
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The Happiness of the Katakuris |
| Original title | カ タ ク リ 家 の 幸福 |
| Country of production | Japan |
| original language | Japanese |
| Publishing year | 2002 |
| length | 113 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Takashi Miike |
| script | Kikumi Yamagishi |
| production |
Hirotsugu Yoshida , Tetsuo Sasho |
| music |
Kōji Endō , Kōji Makaino |
| camera | Hideo Yamamoto |
| cut | Yasushi Shimamura |
| occupation | |
| |
The Happiness of the Katakuris ( Japanese カ タ ク リ 家 の 幸福 , Katakuri-ke no kōfuku , Eng . "The happiness of the Katakuri family") is a Japanese feature film with musical interludes and horror film elements by the director Takashi Miike from 2002. The script was written by Kikumi Yamagishi . The production is a remake of Kim Jee-woon's debut film The Quiet Family from the year 1998 .
The film was first shown on October 31, 2001 as part of the Tokyo International Film Festival . On February 16, 2002, the genre mix was released in Japan. The synchronized German DVD first release took place on February 27, 2006.
action
Japan in the present. An idyllic mountain region is to be developed through infrastructural projects in the distant future. Masao Katakuri, who was fired shortly before his retirement, moves into seclusion with his family of five in order to open a small pension at the foot of a volcano with his savings . Together with the always optimistic wife Teruo, the sprightly grandfather Jinpei, the impatient son Masayuki, the naive and single daughter Shizue and the little granddaughter Yurie, the head of the family fulfills his lifelong dream. Unfortunately, the start-up turns out to be insufficiently thought out. The guests stay away. Despite growing desperation, the four-generation family sticks together.
When the first guest commits suicide under mysterious circumstances and is finally found dead, the Katakuris decide - for fear of bringing the business into disrepute with headlines - to clear all traces and to bury the body in the nearby forest. But the next, occasionally arriving guests are discovered one by one dead in their rooms. Instead of contacting the police, the new deaths in the forest are also "disposed of".
At some point, Masao is informed that the long-awaited road construction project is to lead around an adjacent lake, the place where the Katakuris buried their dead. The now experienced grave diggers therefore begin to transfer all corpses. Against the backdrop of an approaching typhoon that threatens to uncover some graves, events soon come thick and fast. Another eccentric enters the scene. The stranger, a fugitive murderer, is finally sheltered, not knowing that the police are already looking for him. When they finally reached the mountain pension, the Katakuris felt wrongly as convicted, although the arriving officers only want to arrest the murderer suspected here. The wanted man recognizes his hopeless situation and briefly takes Teruo hostage. When the killer leaves Teruo and escapes, he is followed by the detectives. In a surreal ending, a volcanic eruption strengthens the Katakuris in their cohesion.
Awards
- Fantastic'Arts in Gérardmer
- 2004: Special prize of the jury
Reviews
The lexicon of international films wrote that the production was a "pitch-black comedy [...] which at first glance does not seem compatible with the director's oeuvre" . Miike, however, pulls out all the stops and offers a “rollercoaster ride rich in film history, which is roughly initiated by clay dolls at the beginning of the film” .
Web links
- The happiness of the katakuris in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The Happiness of the Katakuris in the online film database
Individual evidence
- ↑ cf. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0304262/releaseinfo
- ↑ cf. Entry in the jmdb (Japanese)
- ↑ a b cf. The Happiness of the Katakuris in the Lexicon of International Films