Dotbankey A lot of fun.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Maleeha Vincent It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Vantec A wonderful look at the world of hosting in Osaka, where young pretty boys preen and hone the art of fulfilling - incompletely - the fantasies of their female clients at a tragic cost. In a refreshing change from the trend of centering every documentary on the documentary's maker, Jake Clennell stays off camera and is rarely heard. The staff and clientèle of host club Rakkyo Café are free to reveal their stories and insights without interference or dramatizations. Neither are needed as the stories are riveting. Unappreciated sacrifices and unfulfilled desires clash with deceit and opportunism in an atmosphere ruled by cold business ethics and marketed emotions. Clennell structures the narratives beautifully, winding through the artifice to the underlying truth as a night at the club unfolds. By the closing scenes of spent hosts staggering home in the early Osakan morning it's hard not to empathize with their emptiness or envy their bank accounts. One of the best documentaries I've seen, the main complaint is clocking in at just over seventy minutes it's too short. Worth hunting down.

bob the moo Café Rakkyo is a host pub, where young men act as hosts to young women who pay them for their time. This can involve sex but a good host will keep that for as long as possible because often a customer will leave him and not come back once she has had everything he can offer. The hosts earn about US$10,000 – US$50,000 each month and are mostly young men. The owner of the Raffyo café is Issei, one of the most popular hosts out of his staff of twenty, acts as our way into this strange world of underground love and friendship.A supremely odd film this one, well, a film of a supremely odd world anyway. I cannot think of anything like it in the UK. Even with the sexes reversed, strip clubs and escorts are very much about money for sex or sexual favours, I can't think of services where women can hang around with men in clubs in the way I saw within this film. I think the film recognises this because it structures itself as a gentle way in to the world for the uninitiated. At first the film just explains it and lets us see the club, listen to the hosts and the girls who come for their company talking about love and longing. However the "twists" come once we understand as the film starts to push below the superficial workings of the club and get a bit more into the people who pay and get paid.Most of the girls we hear from seem to work in a similar industry as the male hosts and their reasons for going to the club seems to be as part of a healing process. The overwhelming impression is of how fake it all is and how empty the lives be. It put me in mind of the line from Common's most recent album where he talks about a stripper when he says "at first stripping seemed so empowering, Most every girl wanna do it now and then, But being meat every day is devouring" because you can see the emotional damage being done within this world where everything is purchased and a transaction – everyone seems to want the real thing but nobody has it. Some show the cracks but most have it hidden but it does come out – the film wisely keeps the signs of stress and damage till the end, again giving a strong structure.Overall a very good film about a very strange world. Being so remote from this sort of experience the film could have left me cold but the structure of the film makes it work really well and produces an interesting and quite emotional documentary.

Chris_Docker The world of hosting is little known outside of Japan, that of glamorous host boys even less. Jake Clennell's mind-boggling documentary is so hypnotic that single young men may want to take notes, and those who are partnered do the same to learn better how to please the female psyche.The 'hosts' in any of ten exclusive clubs in Osaka only make money if they can be charming and engaging while selling champagne at $500 a bottle. Although there are maybe 100 host clubs, most of them provide female companions for light conversation, company, and laughter (not necessarily sex - which is generally provided from a number of different establishments). Issei, however, presides over a Cafe Rakkyo club, where glamorous host boys, not women, do the entertaining. They make beautiful young women laugh, smile and feel good about themselves - women who pay very handsomely for the pleasure. They party till they drop, women competing with each other for the host boys' attention by spending more money."For girls, we are products," says Issei. "We have fake love relationships," and he compares his job to that of Peter Pan, who took people to a world that doesn't exist. "We sell dreams - that's our job." We witness candid interviews with the host boys, including a new lad being interviewed for a job, and also a number of the good-looking young women who frequent the host bars. They confess to how they fall in love with Issei. He, in return, says how although he may have sex with the girls, he often tries not to if that's their aim, because afterwards they are more likely to 'dump him.' Some of these customers have been coming to the club for several years. They pay by the hour for the attention of one of the host boys at the 24hr party room, but he will often be in demand by several women at once. If a woman wants to speak to a host privately, there is a special chair at extra cost ($50). Issei earns about $50,000 a month. He says the thing that stops him earning more is that he cares about his clients and won't let them spend too much money just for the sake of it. He talks about 'healing' his customers Why do the girls come? "When I'm at a host club, I'm treated like a princess," says one. When they have been coming for a year or more, they often look to their chosen host for good advice. A girl never changes host within a club, so a long term 'relationship' of sorts develops. In this high-octane party atmosphere girls spend $1,000 or more in a single day. Issei says the highest was £40,000. "It's about how much girls want to financially worship me," he says. "He listens to me, he entertains me. That makes me really happy," she explains. We see some of the host boys out in the street persuading girls to come for a drink to the club. They have the charisma of TV personalities. The rapid fire conversation and banter is expertly aimed to make the girls smile and feel magnetically drawn to them. In a way it is quite selfless (if highly paid!) and Issei explains that if a host really develops personal needs towards a customer then he can't be effective as a host.One customer explains how she would be prepared to die for Issei. "To a certain extent, money can buy love," he tells the interviewer with a calm conviction that is slightly unnerving. Only later in the film do we find out more about the girls and how many of them play an equally dangerous game.The subject matter, the honesty and insight of the interviews, and the dervishlike way the winning lines are so hard to explain away, together with a very sure documentary hand that inserts no moral judgements, make The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief an unforgettable piece of film-making.

morgannyc-1 The best doc on underground Japanese culture I have seen. It was Refreshing to see an independent doc that held up technically for a Change, excellent camera operation and top notch editing and music. My Friends and myself spent the rest of the night discussing the strange And deep issues brought up by the characters in this film. The film is based around a gang of male hustlers -geisha boys in Osaka was at first a little unsure it seemed that the film had a heavy sense of art direction and a cinematic air that seemed a little incongruous with the harsh realities of the key characters lives, however as the film develops and new twists are revealed it becomes apparent that this is great documentary story telling in a classical tradition.I have never seen such frankness from this element of Japanese society. it was also nice to watch a foreign language doc made for an English speaking audience that did not rely on narration title cards or voice over. An entertaining film with a hidden depth! I would recommend you see this One if you get a chance.