As a family is forced to sell their house and move, the teenage daughter posts a general invitation on social media to come party in the backyard. As strangers and acquaintances show up, things get weirder and weirder.
Written by Suzuyuki Kaneko and Masashi Yamamoto with the latter directing, Wonderful Paradise is a highly enjoyable absurdist comedy with a touch of family drama, horror, Bollywood-style musical, and just about everything and the kitchen sink. Almost literally. This is a film that is built to be nonsensical and completely insane, on purpose. It’s the kind of story that makes sense within its own confines, but once taken out of it, only part of the story makes sense. This doesn’t mean that it’s not a carefully crafted from the writing to the directing to the sets to the acting and so on. This is the kind of film that knows what it’s doing and is not afraid to push this to the limit.
Acting within all that is going on is a group of actors who are clearly unafraid of how things might look upon first glance. They have no fear of the ridiculous and are fully committed to the film and their characters. These characters at the basis are fairly normal people thrown into a sequence of events that gets weirder and weirder, something they accept as simply normal and go on with their lives, trying to get a bit of enjoyment out of it all. This means that the actors had to keep a straight face through some true insanity and just show the emotions that their characters would have were it not for the giant coffee bean kaiju or the dance party funeral or any of the other events in the film. The cast as a group does fantastic work and they are fun to watch as they navigate all the is thrown at them.
Now, let’s talk about the effects because it was not a hallucination it was indeed a giant coffee bean kaiju and that thing is a thing of practical effects beauty. It’s ridiculous, it reminds of other kaijus, and it’s just so over the top, it could only be found in a Japanese absurdist comedy. The crew who created this beast must be rewarded for how they pulled it off on a budget. This thing is magnificent and insane all at once. This one of those beasts that can only work within the confines of kaijus and this is it. This is perfect.
Wonderful Paradise is wonderfully insane, it’s the exact thing everyone in a gloomy mood needs right now. It’s ridiculous, it’s charming, it’s so much fun. It’s the kind of film that pulls the heart strings a few ties and makes the viewer laugh out loud many more times.
The Fantasia International Film Festival runs every year, and this year runs virtually from August 5th until August 25th.