The Family Game (1983)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- A sendup of the stereo-typical Japanese family: dad is a salaryman jerk, unable to relate to anyone; mom is a hopeless housewife; the older son is a moderate academic success; but the younger son is a rebellious goof-off for whom a tutor must be hired. The tutor, played by the prototypical bad-boy actor Matsuda Yusaku, proceeds to blow the entire family apart (Matsuda's role is modeled on the myth of Susano-o no mikoto, the renegade deity who figures in the Kojiki).
- Actors:
- Yûsaku Matsuda, Jûzô Itami, Saori Yuki, Ichirôta Miyakawa, Junichi Tsujita, Yôko Aki, Kôichirô Doi, Katsunobu Ito, Shûsuke Kaneko, Yoshihiro Katô, Asako Kobayashi, Asako Maekawa, Yoneko Matsukane, Mayumi Matsuno, Izumi Nakamori, Kaori Okamoto, Shiro Sasaki, Mayumi Satô, Kentarô Shimizu, Kazuko Shirakawa
- Directors:
- Yoshimitsu Morita
- Producers:
- Yutaka Okada, Shiro Sasaki
- Writers:
- Yôhei Honma, Yoshimitsu Morita
- Aka:
- Kazoku gêmu
- Genres:
- Comedy, Drama
- Countries:
- Japan
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Reviews (1) of The Family Game
Family Admin: Smiles, Silence, and a Very Dark Lesson - The Family Game review by griggs
This isn’t cosy “family life” so much as family admin. It’s not Ozu in style, but it’s got that Ozu-ish focus on routine — only here the politeness feels like a mask. Everything’s neat and well-mannered, yet you can sense the rot underneath, like someone’s sprayed air freshener straight onto a leak.
The family don’t come across as people so much as roles they’ve memorised. Dad’s basically a placeholder. Mum keeps the whole show on the road, but she’s weirdly powerless once she’s done running around after everyone. The older son coasts on being “the good one” until the younger starts catching up, and you can feel the smug little system wobble.
Then the tutor arrives and the mask slips. Things get coercive, there’s a creepy boundary-crossing moment with him that lands badly, and the most chilling bit is how fast the family tries to minimise it and carry on — as if the timetable matters more than the damage. That final dinner scene is the punchline: everyone going through the motions while the meaning drains away. It’s funny, then it isn’t, with a sharp jab at exam culture turning kids into results instead of people.