The Japanese dark comedy, Happiness of The Katakuris, is the tale of a family who builds a guest house in hopes of running a sucessful family business. A new road is supposed to be paved and bring many travelers near the area so the father figure fixes up an old house until it is ready for guests. The road isn't finished yet, but some travelers start coming.... The problem is that they keep dying on their first nights stay in the home.
Katakuris opens with a scene in which a woman is eating soup. Upon probing the soup with her fork she notices a bug-eyed angel inside of it which pops out of the soup and flys away. The movie has amazing claymation in it and is worth watching for that aspect alone.
I know what you are thinking "That's pretty funny, a clay angel popping out of the soup!", but I'd have to disagree. I think that the whole "angel-in-the-soup" gag is way over used. It's like I can't go to a movie nowadays without seeing an angel pop out of somebodies soup and scare the person! Of course the audience laughs everytime, but I'm like "that was so predictable! didn't you see that coming??" I mean, don't get me wrong its funny when it happens in real life, but when it's in a movie and is all scripted like that it is just plain cliche and boring. Hollywood, can't you think of anything new for a change?
Anywho, more about the film. It is part musical, so be warned. Randomly characters will break out into song and dance in different scenes. There is even one scene in which the dead start dancing as well, which is probably as close as we will ever get to a Japanese version of Michael Jackson's Thriller music video. In one particularly long and boring love duet, the lyrics to the song are shown on the screen in a "bouncing ball" style urging the viewer to sing along. I would have, but I don't know Japanese all that well. I mean, at all. Plus, that song sucked.
3 1/2 stars
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