The Crazy Family — The Crazy Family( Blu Ray)
The Crazy Family (aka Gyakufunsha Kazoku) is an early 80’s Japanese domestic drama/ satire- which gets slowly but surely more deranged/ at points demented. The film balances dark humour & more wacky slapstick- with time-to-time things slipping towards the ridiculous and provocative. Here from Third Window Films as part of their Director's Company Collection, which focuses on the legendary 1980s Japanese production company is a recent Blu-Ray of the film, taking in a new scan of the film, a commentary track, a director interview, and visual essay
The Crazy Family is from the year 1984 and was directed by Hakata, Fukuoka Gakuryû Ishii. To date, he has twenty-seven features to his name. These go the Cyberpunk action drama Burst City (1982), the psychological romantic/ mystery Labyrinth Of Dreams(1997), and the punk-toned crime drama That's It(2015).
The film opens with the Kobayashi family making their way to their new home in a van. We have bespeckled/ always look mildly panicked husband/ dad of the family Katsukuni(Katsuya Kobayashi), his wife Saeko(Mitsuko Baishô), and their two children the very studious older teen boy Yasukune(Hitoshi Ueki), and his thirteen-year-old sister Erika (Yûki Kudô).
Their house is set at the end of a street, and they’ve managed to buy it after spending many years renting. We get a rather manic/ sped-up collage of the family moving in over the credits. We find out the family has a standard family dynamic, as Katsukuni is a salaryman travelling each day on a crammed tube train, while she is a housewife.
The families' slow, but surely unravelling is focused around two events- the arrival of Katsukuni’s overbearing father Masaki(Yoshiki Arizono), and Yasukune's finding of a wild dog- who has a single white ant in his fur.
Things start relatively small/ just a bit quirky- like Saeko mimicking striptease in front of her father-in-law, Yasukune stabbing his legs to stay awake to study, and Erika donning make-up/ acting above her age…but boy does it go well and truly off the rails, as floors are dug-up, jackhammers, swords, drills get used, and each family member unfolds in their own way.
The film plays at one hour and forty-eight minutes, and to be honest I felt it could have been cut down say fifteen/ twenty minutes. As in its last quarter, the whole thing feels a tad overplayed- though I love the film’s ending/ resolve- which well & truly puts into action what they are trying to do throughout the film.
Acting from everyone is on-point/ largely good- though I’d say Kobayashi is the highlight here, as he slips from being a mildly panicked/worried salaryman to racing through streets/ tube madman, getting back home to his white ants.
The region-free Blu-Ray takes in a directors-approved new scan of the film- this looks well defined & crisp throughout. We get a few extras & the first of these is a commentary track with Japanese film expert Tom Mes. He starts by giving a brief intro to The Directors Company who made the film, going on to mention some of the other titles Third Widow has released like cold caller drama/ home invasion film Door(1988), raw coming-of-age drama Typhoon Club(1985), and rewarding drama/ character study Love Hotel(1985). He talks about how the film is a parody of what was going on in the 80’s in Japan- middle-class families buying detached houses, and gives us a bit of a history lesson regarding the financial growth/ boom in the country. We find out the picture was filmed during late January & early March 1984- with thirty days on set, and two days on location which was just east of Toyko. He talks about how the literal translation of the film is Reverse Thrust Family, and the story behind this. Later on, he talks about the original story the film was based on, and how at one point it was going to be adapted into a Manga. He discusses how the film is a war movie set in a family home, and how/why the film was the director's last feature-length film for ten years. Another informative/interesting track from Mr Mes.
Otherwise, we have an interview with Director Gakuryu Ishii( 27.30), and The Crazy Family: Sogo Ishii’s Wild Child ( 18.41) which finds genre writer James Balmont comparing the film to hand to the director's early punk-fired films.
The Crazy Family is an effective enough suburban parody- which certainly goes to some deranged & demented places. This new Third Widow film takes in a good new scan of the film, a rewarding commentary track, and a few other extras.