Funuke Domo, Kanashimi no ai Wo Misero (Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers!) (2007)

55% of critics liked it
(11 reviews)
81% of users liked it
(432 ratings)

When the homely 18-year-old Kyomi (Aimi Satsukawa) loses both of her parents to a car wreck, tragedy sets the stage for a seriocomic and occasionally poignant battle-of-wills between the young woman and two of her siblings. So begins Japanese director Daihachi Yoshida's slice-of-life seriocomedy… More When the homely 18-year-old Kyomi (Aimi Satsukawa) loses both of her parents to a car wreck, tragedy sets the stage for a seriocomic and occasionally poignant battle-of-wills between the young woman and two of her siblings. So begins Japanese director Daihachi Yoshida's slice-of-life seriocomedy Funukedomo, Kanashimi No Ai Wo Misero (AKA Funuke, Show Some Love You Losers!, 2007). Upon learning of her parents' death, Kyomi's older sister, the financially-strapped and emotionally-troubled actress Sumika (Eriko Sato), hearkens back to the family's bucolic home to collect on a healthy inheritance - but the girls' brother, the woodcutter Shinji (Masatoshi Nagase), informs her of standing legal delays. Thus, Sumika moves into the house (occupying her childhood room) and waits out an indeterminate period of time, unable to foot the cost of a return to Tokyo. Yoshida then flashes back to detail the family's colorful and occasionally violent past - involving Sumika's prostitution, death threats directed at her father, and exploitation of her conflict with her father by dramatizing and publishing the events in a bestselling manga. Back in the present-day, Sumika receives an offer to write a screenplay and once again turns to family strife as dramatic fodder for her fictions - rapidly coming to the conclusion that perhaps her eccentric family isn't so terrible after all. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 1 hr. 52 min.
Directed By: Daihachi Yoshida
Genres: Drama, Art House & International, Comedy

In Theaters: May 23, 2007 Wide
Studio: Phantom Film

Critic Reviews

Gautaman Bhaskaran, Hollywood Reporter
Has a talented cast yet looks like a television soap.
Russell Edwards, Variety
Sibling rivalry is the source of violence and creativity in amusing Japanese dramedy Funuke.
Anton Bitel, Little White Lies
Yoshida's gloriously titled debut is a tale of three sisters on the verge of a nervous breakdown, told in three clashing styles.
Edward Porter, Times [UK]
The film's wacky ghoulishness holds your attention, but there's not much more than that on offer. Despite a lot of manic effort, none of the actors makes an impression.
Philip French, Observer [UK]
Seduction, persecution, prostitution, suicide and uneasy laughter follow.
Trevor Johnston, Time Out
With Kyomi's manga-drawing skills a key part of the scenario, the visual approach is sometimes too fluffily decorative to let the emotions deliver in full. Eminently likeable nonetheless.
Wendy Ide, Times [UK]
Tonally, it strikes a curious balance between black comedy and melodrama, but visually it's a striking film.
Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK]
The idea of step-siblings thrown together in death is a good one: but this wacky, soapy treatment is odd, to say the least.
Rob Daniel, Sky Movies
Crisply shot with visual flourishes punctuating the unfussy direction, despite a lack of carnage, this is an accomplished and impressive depiction of some absolute barnpots. Those who like their laughs lightly flavoured with ash should check it out.
Martin Hoyle, Financial Times
The calm, deadpan chronicling of what, one trusts, is an untypical rural Japanese family suggests a very black comedy. Slightly too long but hypnotically told, beautifully acted and not at all depressing.
Matthew Turner, ViewLondon
This is uneven and not entirely satisfying but it's worth seeing for its flat out weirdness and the superb performances from Sato and Nagasaku.
Anton Bitel, Film4
This dark comedy is more twisted (and twisty) than it first appears, but as with any family album, it is a few individual scenes that make it memorable rather than the whole, overlong package.

Read all 12 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Nicki M

Usual Japanese weirdness, but seriously way too long. They could easily have chopped some scenes out of this one to make it move a little quicker. Good, weird, quirky characters, though, and an original story.

Cast

Eriko Sato
as Wago Sumika
Aimi Satsukawa
as Wago Kiyomi
Masatoshi Nagase
as Wago Shinji

Hiromi Nagasaku
as Wago Machiko
Hiroshi Yamamoto
as Hagiwara

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Funuke Domo, Kanashimi no ai Wo Misero (Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers!) (2007)

Critic Reviews

Featured Audience Ratings

Nicki M

Cast

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