The Quiet Family vs Happiness of the Katakuris
One of the double features in our #31DaysofHorror watchlist challenge this month is Korean comedy horror The Quiet Family and the quite original Japanese remake The Happiness of the Katakuris. Director Kim Jee-woon has written and directed some truly iconic and popular films. You may be familiar with some of these: I Saw the Devil; Bittersweet Life; A Tale of Two Sisters; The Good, the Bad, the Weird. In The Quiet Family, we get to see Kim's debut feature film as well as the early acting chops of now-famous Choi Min-sik and Song Kang-ho.
A husband, wife, their three teen to young adult children and the father's younger brother all live and work in a lodge along a hiking path in the mountains of South Korea....well, they work when they can because this lodge is not getting the business they had hoped. When the main road's construction delays negatively influence foot traffic even more, the narrator, youngest sister Mina, says they all begin to go quietly hysterical. And indeed they do.
When their first guest commits suicide in one of their rooms, they decide to bury him without informing the police. Then their second guests, a young couple, are also found in their beds, apparently dead from a joint suicide. Madness ensues. Learning that the construction will resume and that workers will need to dig in the very spot where they've buried the guests' bodies, the quiet family must deal with the repercussions of their dirty deeds.
It gets incredibly silly, in the dark way that I enjoy, and I'll leave it to you to find out how it all ends. I've seen this film quite a few times and it always gets belly laughs. As more and more guests come to stay at the lodge, a sequence of unexpected events unfolds until the family eventually look like they do in the picture below.
The Happiness of the Katakuris: an absurdist sometimes-musical remake by Takashi Miike
At the time this film was released, Miike was best known for his highly violent and bloody movies in his native Japanese language. He was moving away from his yakuza themes and more into horror like his 1998 feature film Audition. Miike sort of defies genre these days but at the time, The Happiness of the Katakuris was unique.
Just as funny as the original but in a Miike way. Just that more absurd. Just that more gross. Just that more transgressive. But oh so stylish. That's Miike to me. And that's what I was expecting.
Everyone's acting is self-conscious, not natural. And it works because it's Miike. You can recognize the individual elements from the first film but through his lens, it aims to become zany or fantastical. And dare I say, this is a downright wholesome piece of work, comparatively, from Miike.
But to be honest, I still prefer the original to Miike's remake. Happiness is disjointed and at times, dare I say, boring. That sounds sacrilegious and it makes no sense. Neither does this film. It began strong and I was hopeful we were going to get something groundbreaking. But it just sputtered to its conclusion.
See For Yourselves, As Always
People like different things and you may be a completist who needs to see all of Takashi Miike's work. Whatever the case, check out the two trailers below, watch the films, and decide for yourselves. The Quiet Family is on Amazon. The Happiness of the Katakuris can be found Tubi, Amazon, and Apple TV. Happy viewing!
Note: The Quiet Family's trailer has no English subtitles but you can see the vibe it's going for.