Opiniones de usuarios

The Uchouten Hotel, is, like the name suggests ("uchouten" means something like "to be beside oneself with joy") an extremely fast-paced, incredibly hysterical comedy by Koki Mitani (who also wrote and directed "Warai no Daigaku") about a very busy New Year's Eve in the five star Avanti hotel.

The comedy varies from situational comedy to elements of typical Japanese slapstick and spiced up with unexpected turnouts and embarrassing cock-ups for the main characters.

The film sports some of Japan's most popular actors, such as SMAP singer Katori Shingo and Yakusho Kouji, famous worldwide for his part in the recently Hollywood remade "Shall we Dansu?".

The movie is classical Japanese humour performed flawlessly without retreating too much to old clichéd banalities. I warmly recommend it to any lover of high-paced comedy.

Suite Dreams plays like one of those Michael Hui's style of 70s and 80s style of comedy. Everything takes place in one location. Known as Japan's "King of Comedy", director Koki Mitani certainly displays a good sense of humour. In Suite Dreams, he is able to create a light-hearted, mindless, carefree comedy that is both outright funny and somewhat refreshing. Mitani's style of comedy is simple; a bit like stage comedy, what you see is what you get, which translate to obvious comedy. In that, you laugh at what you see, you hear and how the characters react to situations thrown at them. While a lesser comedy director like Wong Jing will go overboard, Mitani never drags out his sets or jokes, which results in his ability to achieve direct humour rather than over the top annoyance. Running at over 2 hours long, Suite Dreams feel like a quick car-ride and breezes by before you realise. Movies made for laughs are a rarity nowadays and Suite Dreams delivers exactly that. All in all, Suite Dreams is unlikely to set any house on fire, but as a comedy it simply works. It is a kind of movie that requires the audience to check-in and enjoy your stay till your next check out point…

Neo rates it 7/10

It's New Year's Eve for the Hotel Avanti, and the whole place is in panic mode. There's an award ceremony and countdown party to prepare for, guests to greet, entertainment to organise, a persistent call girl to deter, an escapee duck to find, and more.

It is near impossible to sum up this film in a few neat concise paragraphs. The level of writing that has gone into this film is fantastic. Throughout, it really feels like a stage play. The viewer feels intimate with the story and characters, and there is a real warmth and closeness there that is rare to find. Perhaps it the writer's experience with the stage that allows that quality to come through, and as such it is a real strength for the film.

This intimacy really helps the viewer to involve themselves in the story, which is incredibly fast-paced and deliciously mischievous in design. The film is really funny, and represents a very full spectrum of humour, from "hmmm" funny to "hah hah", and wry to downright silly, but still manages to be quite understated. This isn't the kind of film that you will make Pepsi come out your nose, but it is really funny all the same, and and there are some hilarious cock-ups that will have you giggling gleefully.

The jokes of course wouldn't work without the film's biggest strength: the characters. They are all so enjoyable to watch, as their adventures and mishaps tangle and spiral together, gathering momentum in one huge snowball effect. Some scenes are the culmination of so many threads that it is wonderfully painful to watch it all come together. It is hard not to talk at the TV. To the writer's credit though, the film is often refreshingly unpredictable, and I was impressed to find that this comedy of errors didn't just rely on the same old gags as similarly styled comedies.

The film also carries a dramatic message, and while all of the characters are caricatures of sorts, they are much deeper than that, and live and breath to the extent that the viewer finds themselves genuinely caring about what happens to them. There are so many great characters and scenes in this film that it would be a very cynical viewer that couldn't take away something memorable from it.

The Uchoten Hotel is a delightful film, expertly written, directed and performed. Even as the film effortlessly straddles zaniness and sophistication, and its many threads entwine together, the viewer can, just as the Hotel Avanti promises, think of the place as their second home.

Only the Japanese can pull off a film that is as hilarious as it is subtle. Strong, fleshed out characters with comedy that is off-beat and ridiculous, yet subtle and in the background.