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Japan Times: Left-field family drama lifted by a little foreign spirit
When Koji Fukada's "Kantai (Hospitalite)" won the Best Picture Award in the Japanese Eyes section of last year's Tokyo International Film Festival, I wasn't surprised: It's brand of black comedy is funny in smart, original ways. Many reviewers have since compared it favorably with Yoshimitsu Morita's classic 1983 comedy "Kazoku Gemu (The Family Game)," which had a similar story about an eccentric stranger taking over an apparently normal, but dysfunctional, family...And yet at TIFF I heard angry criticism of this film by foreigners, which may seem strange given its full-throated celebration of gaijin in general, with the xenophobic characters getting their comeuppance. But it does traffic in negative stereotypes, mostly via the stranger's sultry blonde girlfriend...more...