2020 ‘脳天パラダイス’ Directed by Masashi Yamamoto
In consequence of his professional mistakes and declining career, Shuji and his family, the Sasaya’s, are forced to leave the wealthy suburb of Tokyo. The move is slow, long and heartbreaking, and the two Sasaya children, an old teenager and a young adult, unwittingly turn the grieving process into an exuberant and unpredictable farewell party!
Kaho Minami Seikô Itô Soran Tamoto Miyu Ogawa Hyunri Jun Murakami Arata Furuta Akira Emoto Kentaro Okochi Shin Kotakehara Sonomi Hoshino Kojiro Sawai Yu Yasuda Ri Tan Jayden Tianyi Zhang Yousoke Nomura Neelu Tadisetty Alec Asgari Miyu Wagawa Sasha Ueda Rion Takahashi Rika Enami Umina Watase Yuma Saito Ate Morikawa Hiroyuki Shoji Nobuwo Tame Hatanaka Shigeki Yoshida Show All…
Sehr episodenhaft und surreal bis zum Anschlag. Dabei aber leider auch extrem langatmig und in den wenigsten Fällen lustig. Hier und da gibt es unterhaltsame Momente und die Schauspieler sind auch gut aufgelegt. Hilft aber auch nicht weiter, weil das kleine Budget jederzeit sichtbar ist und das Timing eher daneben. Der Trailer verspricht hier leider vieles, was der Film nicht halten kann. Schade!
Japan Cuts 2021
Looking to scratch that “weird Japan” itch but with some more substantive meat under the oddity? This has a bit of an After Hours energy, as a small goodbye party thrown by a depressed family losing their home spins out into a full blown festival with funerals, weddings, impromptu yakisoba stands, and Biollante. The surreality emerges slowly, like a turtle poking its head out to test the air before sprinting for the ocean - going from a couple randos stopping by to a full on Bollywood dance number. My only real complaint is that there are a few points where the film goes into Funky Forest territory a little too far too fast.
I need to check out more Masashi Yamamoto - I’ve only seen this, Three Points (which I didn’t care for), and Man Woman and the Wall (which was delightfully perverted).
Was zum Teufel hab ich da gesehen. Eine leicht zerrüttete Familie muss umziehen. Raus aus dem noblen Vorort Tokios, denn die Finanzen spielen nicht mehr mit. Der lähmende und triste Umzug wird jedoch auf den Kopf gestellt, als die Tochter der Familie per Twitter zur Auszugsparty einlädt.
Was dann passiert, ist pures, kreatives Chaos. Eine Junge verwandelt sich in einen Ast, Katzen sprechen, eine Kaffeebohne wird zum Tentakelmonster, es wird geheiratet, gestorben, beerdigt, getanzt, miteinander geschlafen und das sind nur zehn Minuten des Films. Wonderful Paradise ist die geballte Ladung japanische Seltsamkeit. Leider aber auch nur dazu inszeniert, um eben seltsam zu sein. Eine wirkliche Handlung gibt es nicht, nur diverse Charaktereigenschaften der Familie werden immer wieder inmitten des Trubels…
Starts off strong but everything that happens after the halfway mark just falls flat. The coffee shop joke was the best one, I could have done with less sex comedy which frankly felt out of place with the rest of the vibe. I find that even with weirdness, there needs to be some kind of consistency for me to enjoy it, otherwise it's just... weird and not the good kind.
Nippon Connection 2021 Online
Online-Screening OmeU
Skurrilitätenkabinett, das einige nette Gags hat - aber im Ganzen auf mich in weiten Teilen eher zäh und Referenzen-Überrollt wirkt.
Für Liebhaber von überdrehten Filmen vielleicht interessant - ich empfand dieses „Immer-noch-eine-Schippe-mehr“-Konzept irgendwie ok, aber auch nicht mehr - und habe es schon interessanter gesehen.
Japanische Komödien neigen ja doch häufig dazu, vollständig zu entgleisen und auch "Wonderful Paradise" zieht hier voll mit. Sprechende Katzen, Kaiju-Kaffeebohnen, Spontan-Geburten und Kinder, die zu Ästen werden, sind nur wenige der Highlights.
Das alles ist ein sehr kurzweiliger Spaß und hat mich echt überzeugt. Anschauen!!! Läuft auf der Nippon Connection 2021.
Deliriously absurd Japanese comedy. When it comes to Japanese cinema, SUFF almost always brings the goods. If I had seen this in a cinema with a crowd I think I would have been beaming with joy! Much like I often am at SUFF or a joyous screening of similarly surreal Japanese dream at Static Vision earlier this year.
It all connects just enough to feel satisfied beyond some real gut busters.
Watched this for the second time (first time at the Nippon Connection and now at the cinema next door) and it was even more fun. I guess this is one of those movies, that get better, if you know what's coming and you can just enjoy the ride. There's a lot of insane stuff going on (my favorite is the statue, which came to life by the combined power of three orgasm "uh"s and fights a, like tokusatsu monster looking, huge coffee bean) and nothing makes any sense. There's no real story, no suspense, the humor is quite stupid and so on. There's almost nothing, that would make a film in a regular sense good. It kind of reminded me of "Symbol", but makes even less sense. So if you want a crazy party movie, which you can enjoy with your friends while getting wasted and not being able to follow a story, this is the perfect movie.
Ne jamais sous-estimer le labeur et les surprises d'une journée de déménagement.
Wonderful Paradise prend bien son temps pour installer les assises de ce qui va se transformer progressivement en un hilarant et imprévisible bazar bizarroïde qui mélange à peu près tout ce que j'adore du cinéma japonais à son plus déjanté. On ajoute à ça un numéro bollywoodien complètement sorti de nulle part et une filiation inattendue avec l'univers de Funky Forest et The Warped Forest, et me voilà absolument comblé. Un des faits saillants d'une édition anniversaire qui a été un véritable cadeau pour les fans du festival. Chapeau aux organisateurs et mille bravos à toute l'équipe!
On her last day before moving out of her big house with her family, Akane (Miyu Ogawa) invites people over for a farewell party over Twitter. That party soon gets way out of hand...
One of those crazy Japanese comedies in the spirit of FUNKY FOREST which did that formula much better though. While the first half was fun and focusing more on character interaction, it gets too weird for its own good after that. So we get kids getting puked on, talking cats, kids transforming to branches, coffee beans who turn into a Thing-esque monster etc.
This may sound more fun than it is. I can appreciate that Japanese weirdness but it didn't work out for me here. Just…
JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film 2021 || #24/?
No thanks.
The affluent Sasaya family, well-to-do no more, are forced to sell their expensive home in a wealthy Tokyo suburb due to the single-parent patriarch's poor spending and gambling addiction. The daughter impulsively organizes a going away party at the emptying house, a venue that will soon house a cross-country bicyclist, an estranged mother, some school friends, an old man worshipping a Greek statue he mistakenly believes to be Buddha... and, for some reason, a boy that turns into a stick, a talking cat, a murderous gay love triangle, a parasitic, coffee bean alien, and a man whose sperm truncates the 9-month gestation period down to five minutes. If…
Darren Aronofsky’s mother!, but without the biblical allegory, and a whole lot of acid.
