A dazzling fusion of east and west Koki Mitani's Uchouten Hotel - the follow up to his acclaimed University of Laughs - opens up with a title sequence that would've been right at home in a 60's era Sherwood Schwarz production before spinning off into a high energy, multi-stranded comedy of manners that could easily have come from Robert Altman were Altman a good natured Japanese. Set in the curiously anachronistic Avanti Hotel the film takes its enormous and diverse cast of characters through one madcap New Years Eve with Koji Yakusho as the suave assistant hotel manager / ring leader.
It is New Years Eve and the high class Avanti Hotel is finishing up the final preparations for their annual New Year's bash. Complicating matters are the incorrect party banners, the simultaneous Man of the Year banquet for a group of - wait for it - deer fertility enthusiats, and the presence of a disgraced senator hiding out from the ravenous press corps who have gotten word of his presence. Add to the mix a renegade duck, a persistent prostitute, an ex wife, a would be lover, a tempermental diva, and the usual assortment of broken hopes and bright new plans that accompany New Years everywhere and you begin - just begin - to get a picture of what's going on. At the center of it all is Yakusho as Shindo, the casually competent assistant manager dancing from crisis to crisis, keeping all of the plates spinning.
A smart, light piece of entertainment with a dazzling array of rich characters and situations the joy of a film like The Uchouten Hotel is the grace of its construction and director Mitani is an absolute master when it comes to juggling multiple plotlines and characters, the points of intersection seemingly casual and random but paying off handsomely as the film progresses. The cast is huge with a mix of well known - Yakusho, Susumu Terajima, an almost unrecognizable Joe Odagiri - and unfamiliar faces and Mitani excels at giving each of his players distict personalities and parts to play as the film progresses. He shifts easily from straight comedy to more dramatically tinged moments and equally easily between the different classes of the hotel.
This is the sort of film that, once upon a time, built Hollywood. It is constructed with style and class, geared to clever dialogue, smooth characters, subtle slapstick and just a touch of the absurd. The men are handsome, the women beautiful, and manners still count for something. It is a welcome throwback to the days when 'adult' meant 'sophisticated' rather than 'smutty'. It shows the same sense of observational humor laced with gentle satire that earned University of Laughs such high praise but on a much larger scale, with much higher character ambitions. Mitani is a writer's director, an occurence so rare these days that it would be sure to set him apart from the crowd even if he were not such a damn good one.
The recent Japanese DVD gives you exactly what you would expect: an excellent transfer in the proper ratio with flawless English subtitles. The basic reality of the international DVD market today is that local companies are only interested in Asian titles that fall in either the high arthouse category or, preferably, the twisted and transgressive. This film falls into neither of these camps which means that it is exceedingly unlikely to ever find a home outside of Japan. Don't let that deter you. It is well worth seeking out.