The Funeral

1984

2h 4m

Comedy

List

100%

Tomatometer

5 Reviews

85%

Audience Score

1,000+ Ratings

The lives of an affluent and modern Tokyo couple (Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto) are suddenly interrupted by the death of a parent and the desire to give a suitable, traditional funeral. Easier said than done, apparently, as a number of small-scale crises keep things from going smoothly, even with the help of an extravagant priest and a how-to video cassette. Tensions rise and boundaries are pushed in this satire about the clash between modern convenience and traditional culture.

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Derek Smith

Slant Magazine

Itami Jûzô’s debut feature is an at once wistful and whimsical depiction of the emotions unleashed by our private and public confrontations with death.

May 12, 2022

Full Review

Panos Kotzathanasis

Asian Movie Pulse

“The Funeral” is a very easy to watch movie about how Japanese families work, particularly regarding the case of death, but also has a universal appeal due to the comments Itami makes, which extend much further than just the ones about family.

Rated: 7

Sep 24, 2023

Full Review

Michelle Kisner

The Movie Sleuth

The Funeral addresses the generational divide between old traditions and the duality of the younger cosmopolitan members who try to uphold them with their own spin on it.

Sep 22, 2022

Full Review

Douglas Davidson

Elements of Madness

Utilizing the very real customs and traditions of Japanese culture, Itami presents the public versus the private for audiences to observe within a fictional setting which incorporates various hijinks, promoting a personal rumination on life and death.

May 15, 2022

Full Review

Nathanael Hood

Unseen Films

...a sober, gently melancholy look at an upper-middle-class family's preparation for a traditional Japanese funeral.

Rated: 7/10

Apr 15, 2020

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s r

The humor here for me was few and far between. I guess I need to understand Japanese culture a bit better. I did find it good to learn about funerals in Japan and traditions there.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

dave j

Written and directed by Juzo Itami starring Tsutomu Yamazaki as Wabisuke Inoue narrating his father in law's funeral. Many people show up including the friends the father in law made at the senior's club to Wabisuke's mistress.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

03/30/23

Full Review

Audience Member

I was just re-watching some Juzo Itami's movies and decided to share my impressions about these classics with all my Facebook friends in order to encourage them to enjoy the art of this filmmaking master, the voice who screamed, always with a sour sense of humour, against the wrong side of his society and its more ridiculous features and contradictions. "The Funeral" was his debut as a director. It's a strange-looking story about a famous actor who must attend his father-in-law's funeral but he doesn't know how to behave in that kind of ritual, so he tries to learn from a videotape course... Not to be missed the sex scene in the forest, one of the weirdest I've ever seen...

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/02/23

Full Review

Audience Member

With this film, Itami forced his 1984 Japanese audience to reconsider some of their basic values concerning life, death, religion, and tradition in light of their nation's increase in wealth and their society's growing materialism. Obviously these themes resonate with people from all over the world, and Itami turns out the best funeral-satire film since the adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's The Loved One.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/20/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Japanese man struggles through hosting his father-in-laws funeral. Watching a modern Tokyo family struggle through a three day funeral wasn't as amusing as the premise sounded, but then I'm sure a lot of the cultural references went over my head (much as the characters themselves struggled with the etiquette).

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

02/10/23

Full Review

Audience Member

freakin' loved the car and B&W montage scenes

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

02/23/23

Full Review

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Juzo Itami

Director

Tsutomu Yamazaki

Wabisuke Inoue

Nobuko Miyamoto

Chizuko Amamiya

Kin Sugai

Kikue Amamiya

Hideji Ôtaki

Shokichi Amamiya

Koen Okumura

Shinkichi Amamiya

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Synopsis

The lives of an affluent and modern Tokyo couple (Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto) are suddenly interrupted by the death of a parent and the desire to give a suitable, traditional funeral. Easier said than done, apparently, as a number of small-scale crises keep things from going smoothly, even with the help of an extravagant priest and a how-to video cassette. Tensions rise and boundaries are pushed in this satire about the clash between modern convenience and traditional culture.

Director: Juzo Itami
Producer: Yasushi Tamaoki, Yutaka Okada
Screenwriter: Juzo Itami
Production Co: Itami Productions
Genre: Comedy
Original Language: Japanese
Runtime: 2h 4m