Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers! — Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers!( Blu Ray)

Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers! is a family drama-come-black comedy, with some quirky touches here and there. This is the first-ever Blu Ray release of this award-winning/ nominated Japanese film, with the disc featuring a new scan of the picture, as well as a selection of archive extras.
 

The rather lengthily titled Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers! ( aka Funuke domo, kanashimi no ai wo misero) is from the year 2007. It was directed by Daihachi Yoshida, who also wrote the film's screenplay. In all Yoshida has ten credits to his name, and this is his second feature. His other credits were Permanent Nobara( 2010) an Offbeat dramatic comedy about a recently divorced woman who returns to her hometown, Pale Moon(2014) which is a light drama focusing on a career woman in the ’90s, and The Scythian Lamb (2017) a drama/ thriller about population decline in a small seaside village. Overall, Funuke is a well enough made and shot drama and black comedy blend- with a good small cast, and fairly rewarding character arch/ development occurring over the film- though there are a few negatives, but more on those later.
 
The film is set in rural Japan- opening with a double off-screen death- when a local respected husband and wife try to save a cat from been run over by a truck, both getting themselves killed as a result. Sumika (Eriko Sato) the glamorous yet smug older daughter of the family returns home to attend her parents' funeral. Fairly soon the feud between Sumika and her younger bespectacled is Kiyomi (Aimi Satsukawa) is brought to the surface again. Some years early just before Sumika departed to Toyok, Kiyomi got her Manga comic in a popular publication- and it openly mocked/ sent up her pompous and self-important older sister. Also living in the small family home, that's set between fields and mountains, is the pairs old brother Shinji (Masatoshi Nagase) whose decidedly stern & trying to keep the family together, he’s married to overly helpful/ always trying to her best mail order bride Machiko(Hiromi Nagasaku).
 
As the film unfolds, we get insights into the families lives- which are marred with pompous self-belief, disappointment, and trying to keep face. Laced through their lives are elements of incest, bullying, control, and blackmail. The small cast is largely very good- with special mentions going to Sato as the rather obnoxious back the big city sister, and Nagasaku as the bumbling-always- trying to be her best wife, where much of the films black humour comes from.

And now I guess it’s best to move onto the pros and cons of the film- on the positive side of things the idyllic setting works well as a backdrop to families troubled lives, with the blend of drama and dark comedy managed well enough. On the negative side of things, the pacing/ flow of the whole thing is a little baggy in places, with the films one hour and fifty-two minutes really lagging at points. I also felt the quirkier edges weren’t quirky enough. So as a result, I came away from Funuke feeling rather torn- I enjoyed the characters and the actors involved, I also enjoy other elements of the films- but for me it felt too long, and was not quirky enough.
 
Moving onto this region B Blu Ray- and the print here looks good and well balanced, but of course, this is a relatively new film. Moving onto the extras- and as far as I can gather these are all from a previous release of the film. We get twenty-five minutes making-of, this features an interview with the cast and crew- and gives you a good look at the film's production. You get three minutes of deleted scenes,  and a few minute shots relating one of the film's actresses. So, a good enough selection of extras- though it might have been nice one or two bits of new extras.
 
In conclusion, I wanted to like Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers! more than I did. There’s no doubt it’s a well-acted/well-made family drama, I just wish the dark humour had been a bit more pronounced, with more generally quirky edges to the proceeding, and some of the films lag been cut back somewhat. Nevertheless, if you enjoy (light) dark comedy-drama, that’s well acted and well shot- I’d say give this go.