Juzo Itami, actor and son of director Mansaku Itami, created a wry, sometimes hilarious and ultimately bittersweet comedy for his first try as a director. He made it under the auspices of Japan's Art Theater Guild, which had also been responsible for Shinoda's "Double Suicide" and other avant-garde films.
Itami's always gentle observations of a Japanese family's various reactions to the death of their patriarch (the death scene alone is beautifully done), as viewed and commented on by the dead old man himself is humanely humorous.
Itami's satiric style got a great deal broader after "The Funeral" - peaking with "A Taxing Woman." But the style he adopted became tedious in the '90s - culminating with a jibe at the Yakuza that provoked them to attack Itami with razors. Some people can't take a joke it seems.
Itami's always gentle observations of a Japanese family's various reactions to the death of their patriarch (the death scene alone is beautifully done), as viewed and commented on by the dead old man himself is humanely humorous.
Itami's satiric style got a great deal broader after "The Funeral" - peaking with "A Taxing Woman." But the style he adopted became tedious in the '90s - culminating with a jibe at the Yakuza that provoked them to attack Itami with razors. Some people can't take a joke it seems.