Party 7 (2000)

Director:

Katsuhito Ishii

Writer:

Katsuhito Ishii

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Seven characters, introduced at the start of the film, get thrown together into the same hotel room:...

Plot Keywords:

Thief | Hotel | Suitcase | Digit In Title | Number In Title

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Masatoshi Nagase	...	Shunichirô Miki
Keisuke Horibe	...	Shingo Sonoda
Yoshinori Okada	...	Todohei Todohira
Akemi Kobayashi	...	Kana Mitsukoshi
Tadanobu Asano	...	Okita Souji
Yoshio Harada	...	Captain Banana
Tatsuya Gashûin	...	Wakagashi (Chû Isomura)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ryo Kase	...	Mini-market employee
Yoneko Matsukane	...	Travel Agent
Yoshiyuki Morishita	...	Baldie
Nobuto Okamoto
Rumi
Yôhachi Shimada
Seiji Tanaka	...	Teacher
Yôji Tanaka
Kanji Tsuda	...	Desk Clerk
Ren Ôsugi	...	Doctor

Directed by
Katsuhito Ishii

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Katsuhito Ishii

Produced by
Hilo Iizumi	....	producer
Shunsuke Koga	....	producer
Kazuto Takida	....	producer

Original Music by
James Shimoji

Cinematography by
Hiroshi Machida

Film Editing by
Yumiko Doi

Art Direction by
Yuji Tsuzuki

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Tenpei Masuda	....	first assistant director

Camera and Electrical Department
Taro Kimura	....	gaffer

Animation Department
Takeshi Koike	....	lead animator

Other crew
Peter Chung	....	director: credit sequence

Production Companies

• Intrinsic
• Tohokashinsha Film Company Ltd.

Distributors

• Synapse Films (2008) (USA) (DVD)
• Tohokushinsha Film (2000) (Japan) (DVD)

Runtime:

104 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Company:

Intrinsic

Movie Connections:

References "Hotel Room" (1993)

Weird, though I really didn't see much purpose behind the weirdness.

I like weird and offbeat films. And, some of the weirdest and most enjoyable have been some of the Japanese films, such as "Happiness of the Katakuris" and "Zebraman". However, sometimes films are just plain weird and don't seem to have much to them apart from their strangeness. Such is the case with a Japanese film, "Party 7". It's certainly quirky and strange...but it also left me feeling unsatisfied.

The film is about a room in a hotel in the middle of no where. Into one room in the hotel come some very odd guests--a thief, his old girlfriend, her new and super-nerdy boyfriend, an assassin and an assassin who's out to get them all. But here is where it gets a lot weirder...as well as pretty disturbing. While Japanese audiences might have found the characters of Captain Banana and Yellow Man, most Americans probably would find them disgusting and no understand how audiences were expected to laugh at some sex offenders. Yep...these two get off watching folks from a hidden room and they are clearly intended to be comical. I just don't know what to think of all this. It was meant to be funny, but the sum total of all the pieces just seemed disjoint and unfunny.

Perhaps this is a film best seen with a Japanese friend who can explain all this. I just felt confused and a bit disturbed.