The Happiness of the Katakuris

It's bad enough that nobody visits the rustic inn owned by the Katakuri family, but what few guests they have inevitably end up dead…under gruesome circumstances. One of eight films directed by the very prolific Takashi Miike in 2001, The Happiness of the Katakuris is a creatively dazzling, if visually rushed, stylistic mishmash combining live action, claymation, and music (with singing zombies, no less). What's striking, however, isn't how many genres Miike (Audition) mines for his style, but the human element at the heart of the story: yes, there may be gruesome violence, a singing sumo wrestler, and two humping bunnies silhouetted by a full moon, but ultimately this is a story about a man crushed by modern Japanese life who is just trying to keep his family together. And while the film, like life itself, may be full of unexpected tragedies, happiness is always just around the narrative corner. Recommended. (D. Fienberg)[Blu-ray/DVD Combo Review—June 30, 2015—Arrow, 113 min., in Japanese w/English subtitles, R, $39.95—Making its first appearance on Blu-ray, 2001's The Happiness of the Katakuris features a nice transfer and an uncompressed stereo PCM soundtrack. Extras include two audio commentaries (one by director Takashi Miike; the other by Japanese cinema expert Tom Mes), a new interview with Miike (39 min.), a “making-of” featurette (31 min.), a “Dogs, Pimps, and Agitators: A Few Things about Takashi Miike” piece (24 min.), an “Animating the Katakuris” segment (6 min.), interviews with Miike (5 min.), interviews with costars Kenji Sawada (5 min.), Kiyoshiro Imawano & Shinji Takeda (5 min.), Tetsurō Tamba (4 min.), Keiko Matsuzaka (3 min.), and Naomi Nishida (2 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: this strange but compelling foreign film makes a welcome debut on Blu-ray.]