The Happiness of the Katakuris

 

Reviewed by: Noël
Recommended by: Casey

Ok, so I like Takashi Miike, and I like comedy horror - hell, I even like musicals just fine - but this movie did not do it for me. The only reasonable explanation for this storyline; everyone is dead and in purgatory.

Examples why: 

1. Cupid creature at beginning of the movie is in fact a demon from hell because it is terrifying. 

2. People come to the White Lovers' Inn as a place to die and move onto the next plane of existence. 

3. Some people cannot die because hellooooo already dead, it's purgatory.

4. During many scenes, the camera zooms way out and you see the characters dancing/singing in space, like planets and constellations around them. Obviously this storyline is occurring in a different spatial dimension. 

5. Extremely strong family bond has kept all of the Katakuris in one group, unable to progress to the next plane of existence until...

6. They finally let go of their Grandfather and then all the rest of the family can finally move into heaven. Heaven consists of the Inn physically being magically moved to beautiful grasslands with exotic animals grazing and the Sound of Music playing. 

Final thoughts: not a horror movie. 

Random thing I learned: So one of the dance numbers had a guy singing to his love interest about how his nose was bleeding NOT because the blood was rushing to his head since he was so horny. It made me realize: there is a LOT of manga that I've read where a guy's nose will suddenly start bleeding around a girl and then the guy is always really embarrassed. I thought it was just embarrassing bc yeah, bloody noses are embarrassing, but I guess this is a sign that a man has an erection?!?! Wow, ok. I'm worried about the other things in manga that I just skipped over, like does the angry signal or the little snot nose bubble mean something else????????