House Of Sayuri

Real estate is often murder and has been for a long time. Regarding that matter, Japan has been more of a stellar example of, than an exception to the rule: a person owning a modest home and sharing it with several more family members across at least three generations could be considered well off. That might as well be the reason why J-horror plots often centre on a dream house haunted by a ghost from its past who is also the primary reason why the average family could afford the house anyway.

Coming from the veteran of the genre, Koji Shiraishi of 2009's Grotesque and 2007's The Slit Mouthed Woman fame, House Of Sayuri follows a familiar path, at least in the beginning. The extended family of seven, lead by the father Akio (Zen Kajihara), and including his wife Masako (Fusako Urabe), children Norio (Ryoka Minamide), Keiko (Kokoro Morita) and Shun (Ray Inomata), as well as his parents Shozo (Kitaro) and Harue (Toshie Negishi), move into an unkempt, but spacious house on the outskirts of an unnamed city and the things from the J-horror playbook soon start to happen. The TV reception glitches, a bloated figure lurks in the shadows, and Keiko starts to act strangely. Norio’s new schoolmate Sumida (Hana Kondo), who is also a bit of a medium, warns him that his family should leave the house, or else…

As expected, the bodies start to pile up, but there is something off with the film’s pace and motifs in the script Shiraishi co-wrote with Mari Asato that is based on Rensuke Oshikiri’s manga. Firstly, we do not get an extended exposition, but the shit hits the fan rather quickly, which pretty much defies the sub-genre conventions. Secondly, grandma's dementia is used to milk some cheap laughs, further enhanced by Kondo’s “wink-wink”-type of acting, which might seem tasteless to a European eye, although it might be rooted in cultural differences.

When the perpetrator is revealed to be the ghost of a girl named Sayuri (Haruka Kubo), who might have some very good reasons for possessing others and creating havoc, the film takes a sharp turn towards a revenge thriller. In between, we get a revelation that grandma is not demented, but a retired tai-chi master who decided to lay low for a while. And after her “makeover” and the Karate Kid-lite training sequence with the only other surviving member, Norio, the film sets a course combining the notions of Takashi Miike’s more serious works and the trends of the contemporary Korean genre cinema with the flavour of Ghostbusters silliness in which the tough grandmother, her toughened-up grandkid along with his medium love interest try to put the spirit to rest.

There is more than enough to the story to keep the viewers entertained for the 100+ minutes of runtime, and Shiraishi also demonstrates directing chops when it comes to orchestrating a set piece. Some of the moments in design are on verging on genius, too. For example, turning the demented grandma into a dark hippie – rather than a zen-warrior or ex-yakuza – accompanied by a fitting stoner rock soundtrack is an especially nice touch. However, the script and Shiraishi’s reading of it suffer from too many, too random and too steep tonal shifts from deadpan seriousness to complete and utter silliness that make House Of Sayuri play like a peculiar rather than fully accomplished movie.

The bottom line is that we cannot be certain what House Of Sayuri wants to communicate and to which audience. It also reflects on its distribution strategy that combines festivals specialised in genre cinema like last year’s Bucheon and Fantasia, or this year’s Haapsalu, where we caught it, with internet streaming with no clear pattern to be seen. In the end, it is just an oddity, an entertaining one, but still...

Reviewed on: 14 May 2025