THE HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS (2001)

Say whaaat?  A Takashi Miike musical!  How strange is that?

Four generations of the Katakuri family have opened a bed and breakfast out in the countryside with expectations that a major road will be built nearby.  Until then, they're pretty low on customers...and for some reason quite a few of the customers that they do get end up dead!  Scared that all of these deaths will ruin their new business the Katakuri family simply bury them out back.  Yeah, this is not your normal musical.

THE HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS definitely gets points for imagination, but it should have been trimmed down some to speed up the pace.  Slow pace aside I did enjoy the film.  Tetsuro Tanba's yelling and Kiyoshiro Imawano's performance were the highlights of the movie for me.  Dancing zombies, great camerawork, wonderful direction by Miike, good acting, crazy claymation skillfully used to cover up the low budget.  THOTK might not be up everybody's alley, but in the right state of mind it can be very enjoyable.

DEADLY OUTLAW REKKA (2002)

Yakuza gangbanger Riki Takeuchi gets all bent out of shape when his boss (and father-figure) is assassinated.  He gets even further bent out of shape when his gang starts talking to the rival gang (the ones secretly behind the assassination) about a truce.  He gets even further bent out of shape when he's double-crossed by his own gang and blamed for some murders he didn't commit (...although earlier he did actually murder 3 rival yakuza for talking shit to him).  So now he and his best friend are hellbent on revenge against the traitors in their gang and the people in the rival gang who are responsible for their boss' death.  "Rekka" means “raging fire” in Japanese.

Although there are a few surreal Miike moments (especially towards the end), DEADLY OUTLAW REKKA is a pretty straightforward yakuza film and very enjoyable.  High energy, fantastic editing, awesome soundtrack, great camerawork, quick pace and a impressive cast full of familiar faces including the legendary Renji Ishibashi who gets so upset at one point he throws his toupee at Riki Takeuchi!!!

Highly recommended and worthy of repeat viewings.  Double feature with YAKUZA DEMON.