Excellent, Without a doubt!!

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

An extended family move out to the country to run a B&B, only to find that each rare and sorely-needed guest winds up dead on their property. Naturally this prompts a series of frantic musical sing-along productions before the shovels come out. One of Seven films made in 2001 alone by the absurdly prolific Takashi Miike (best known in the west for his more intense horror works such as the magnificent "Audition" and "Ichi The Killer"), this loose remake of Korean film "The Quiet Family" has all the rough edges and scatter-shot structure you'd expect of a film presumably made over a quiet weekend between projects. But for all that, it's frequently very funny, admirably off-kilter, and features quite the finest claymation soup- sprite that I've seen this year.Should you find that "Les Miserables" simply doesn't have the epic scope and emotional punch you want in a musical, then this combination of "The Sound Of Music", "Saturday Night Fever", "Shallow Grave" and "Shaun Of The Dead" is absolutely what you've been looking for.

Takashi Miike is one of cinema's true mavericks, a bold auteur who flirts with disaster every time he settles into the director's chair, and yet somehow, more often than not, he still manages to pull something out of the bag to surprise and delight fans of the bizarre.Take The Happiness of the Katakuri's for example: on paper it sounds positively dreadful, a horror/comedy/musical remake of Jee-woon Kim's The Quiet Family, with random claymation sequences thrown in for good measure; once again, though, Miike's unique, off-beat approach to his work, which eschews virtually every convention of mainstream cinema, makes for a visually innovative, one-of-a-kind viewing experience.It takes less than a minute for the madness to begin, when a woman eating soup pulls a small animated imp-like creature out of her bowl, after which the film becomes progressively more bonkers—a wild ride through a world where mid-movie karaoke singalongs and dancing zombies are routine occurrences. This might not be the most coherent thing Miike has ever made, and there's a good chance viewers unaccustomed to Miike's style will be left scratching their head by the time the end credits roll, but there's definitely never a dull moment.

I am always a fan of Takashi Miike. This film really showed the strange and crazy mind of his. With him and his writers, they made one interesting film. Imagine a horror, comedy, musical, slapstick, claymation, love story. Sounds kind of hard to take all in; and it is at first. But you really come to enjoy the craziness of this film. The cast is pretty good. The father is Kenji Sawada who seems to always have things happen. The mother is Keiko Matsuzaka who seems to take charge in the worst situations. Then you have the brother Shinji Takeda who is an ex con. The sister is Naomi Nishida who only wants to find a husband. Her daughter is played by Tamaki Miyazaki who is a cute little girl who is also the narrator. Then you have the grandpa played by Tetsuro Tanba who is just kind of out of his mind. The whole cast had different personalities and throughout the film you see more interesting characters. Also in the film you will see zombies and death followed by happy musical numbers. Then you will see reality burst into the abnormal with claymation scenes; creative and interesting. This film will pretty much make you go through every emotion. Combining the goofy with a normal reality. The story line is really hard to explain. Instead of explaining it, it is better to watch it and experience it. This film is truly not in the norm at all and that is what makes it so great to watch. There is always something going on. The only really thing I had against it is that it can get a little too confusing and some of the characters moments can get a little too goofy. But no matter what happens, you still want to watch it. I actually caught myself not paying attention to the story at parts and just being interested in the moment going on. Another crazy film by Takashi Miike.

Skipping any attempt to outline the story; (which for Takashi Miike, is remarkably blithe), The Happiness of The Katakuris is an often hilarious journey through cross genre pastiches, dealing with familiar themes of family breakdown, violence, murder, sexual perversion and criminality, only with a delightfully lighthearted twist.The whole film is dripping with a camp amateurishness which makes it all the more marvellous to watch; from the farcical musical numbers, to the occasionally outrageous acting and unlikely dialogue. The Happiness of The Katakuris isn't afraid to go anywhere, and succeeds in shocking only because no genre is left unexploited; (comedy, horror, slapstick, family drama, musical, animation, crime drama etc etc etc). There were a number of scenes I watched almost mesmerised by the film's abject refusal to be in the least bit 'normal'- take for example the scene where the family are discussing the merits of the 'Female' singer parading around on the TV... nuff said! Like other Takashi Miike films, The Happiness is definitely an assault on the senses, with semi-naive but non-the-less complex claymation, hammy song and dance numbers accompanied by over the top lighting and visual effects you might be forgiven for thinking that the movie is simply a mish-mash of cross-genre parodies, however, the whole is certainly better than the sum of its parts and The Happiness stands as a unique and totally watchable - nay - immensely enjoyable movie.