A special ancestor to many horror movies

A lovely forebear of Evil Dead 2, it's animated by the same love of cinema and shares it with the same immoderate joy.
Another point in common is the use of arthouse-style editing effects with a half-horrific, half-humorous purpose and frenetic energy. And the latter creates some beautiful artistic moments amidst the chaos, such as the mirror scene and the piano assassination.
The then-young actresses have not enjoyed fantastic careers since, but I find them all convincing in what they were asked to do.
The older actress who plays the aunt is a pleasure to watch, having a ball as a very ham-handed villain.
The action scenes with Kung-Fu are surprisingly well done.

The film is dated, however, and whatever innovations it may have displayed on release, today some visual effects could look as if they'd been created with a bad free video editing app, and it's not always possible to overlook or sublimate them.
Fortunately, most of them are quite interesting, and add their share to an already rich and baroque editing style, set and props.
I don't have a strong opinion on the conclusion of the story, but it's a reasonable ending, yes.

The management of the music is perhaps one of the failures of this experimentation. On the one hand, I like the musical style's discrepancy with the film, but on the other, its constant use is both wearing and sometimes unsatisfactory. It's a flaw that could be applied to the film as a whole, which is highly lavish but just as messy.

A potential rewatchable winter classic as far as I'm concerned.

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Half-baked but the baked part is pretty good

The film is at its best when threading unusual vignettes through various Tokyo landscapes, such as when we follow an unstoppable multicolored guitarist, or when a slightly ridiculous cosplayer suddenly jumps from a rooftop, inexplicably surviving only to flee on his moped just as white as his costume.
These scenes, though fun enough and appropriately tied in with the main plot, just don't mesh sufficiently well. Two films seem to be fighting for the right to exist here, a limp absurdist comedy and a hastily spliced family drama.
The patchwork approach is viable, but the absurd intensity should have been pushed far beyond what is presented, and the dialogue crafted with greater flair.
The interludes with the dead wife's colleagues are entirely dispensable.

That said, nothing is mediocre, the actors play well, Tokyo is beautiful, and the group scenes in the final act are touching.

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