The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief (2006)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Director:

Jake Clennell

Genre:

Documentary

Tagline:

Meet Osaka's number one selling Host.

Plot:

Welcome to The Great Happiness Space: Rakkyo Café. The club's owner, Issei (22), has a staff of twenty...

Plot Keywords:

Host | Japanese Culture

Awards:

1 win & 2 nominations

Country:

UK

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

Osaka, Japan

Company:

Jake Clennell Productions

Quotes:

Female Customer: When I get drunk and you don't entertain me I can't stand it.

Love and Death

I don't know What movie that last commenter was watching, but it sure as hell wasn't this one. This is a depressing, depressing film, and you will NOT learn any sex tricks in this movie -- in fact, no one actually gets laid at these host clubs. Nor will you learn how to anything about pleasing a woman, nor anything about charm: these youngsters engage in a frightening deathlike ritual, where the traditional courtship rituals are endlessly repeated, completely emptied out of any spontaneity or novelty.

"I would die for Issei" -- one girl proclaims -- little wonder, since every single one of their actions seem to reach out for death.

Is Japan the death intrinsic to modern life? The naiveté of more maddeningly superficial examinations of Japan (e.g. the insufferable Lost in Translation) attempt to delimit the borders of life and death in terms of the most superficial and ethnocentric terms. But, the power of documentary comes from the ultimate NEGATING of racial difference in search of a more fundamental ground for the determination of life and death -- and in the sympathy in which these characters are portrayed and the philosophical clarity in which these characters speak (The Japanese, introspective, sentimental, and highly educated, are naturally drawn towards a certain form of philosophy) we find the possibility of thinking the death of all civilizations.