Hospitalite

My House Is Your House: A Japanese Offering With Subtle Humor, Domestic Intrigue, And Bold Originality
The Japanese film "Hospitalite" has a gentle quirkiness that is rather disarming. I knew nothing about the film before settling in to watch it and, to a large degree, the film thwarted my every expectation. What begins as a lightweight family drama morphs into a twisty game of manipulation before settling into a true celebration of life. Seriously, you've got no idea where this story will end up from where it begins. And that's always a positive from my perspective. Elements of drama, black comedy and even slapstick take turns in this tale that gets increasingly odd as it progresses. But the odder it got, the more charmed I became. I can understand how some might find the beginning too subtle as it establishes the characters and their relationships with gentle humor, but it is exactly this more mild mannered approach that really sells the big finale. And the final section of the film is quite big, quite unexpected, quite jubilant and surprisingly meaningful as well...

Highly Entertaining!
Original, Funny and Thoughtful! Hospitalite is a drama-comedy with an enjoyable plot and an amazing cast! I'm a very difficult viewer who needs to be entertained but I actually really enjoyed the slow pace of the film. I felt I could better follow the evolution of each character and feel incredibly connected to them. Each character has something sincere and crazy that makes you never want to leave them and the `'family'' they form. One of the best films I have seen in a while!

Hospitality Taken To The Absurd
Mikio Kobayashi (Kenji Yamauchi) runs a printing business on the ground floor of his home. His second and very young wife Natsuki (Kiki Sugino) handles the financial affairs of the shop and looks after his daughter Eriko (Erika Ono). Into their lives comes a manipulative con man/blackmailer named Kagawa (Kanji Furutachi) claiming to be the son of an old friend of Kobayashi's father. Kagawa rapidly takes over the job of a sick employee and gets room and board provided too. Kagawa then also brings his wife to live in the house, the wife says she is from Brazil but one has doubts about this statement as she later says she is from Bosnia. Her English sounds American. What follows is that Kobayashi's life and the life of his family is turned inside out and upside down. Although this movie starts off subtly and slowly it picks up speed as it goes along, secrets are revealed and the plot thickens. I found this film to be primarily an outing and criticism about Japanese xenophobia. The...

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