Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Holstra Boring, long, and too preachy.

Whitech It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

My Two Lips This film, The Great Happiness Space by Jake Clynell, was an intriguing, thought-provoking and sometimes disturbing glimpse into a culture that is, to most, unfamiliar if not unthinkable. It engages the audience in a no-holds-barred look at the Japanese male companionship trade, providing insight into reasons for why men become hosts as well as why women seek out their services. Question after question was raised in my mind not only about the lives of the men working at Osaka's Cafe Rakkyo but also about a culture in which this industry can exist and thrive. What are these women lacking in life that makes them shell out thousands of dollars just for amusement, entertainment and male company? Many reviews and even the synopsis on the website, compare these male hosts to geisha, citing them as a contemporary male version of this ancient tradition, but I have to disagree. Geisha were well trained in a variety of art forms and provided dance and music in addition to their intelligent conversation to the men who paid to spend time in their presence. The male hosts at Rakkyo lack these talents and, instead, offer a different set of services and fill a very specific niche in a Japanese society that has an interesting relationship to sexuality and intimate relationships.This is a movie to watch, not just to learn about the sex trade in Japan, but also to spark thoughts on why men and women both seek intimacy in its different forms within the service industry. Having lived in Japan and possessing an interest in gender and sexuality issues, I thought I knew what I was getting into when I pressed the play button, but this film introduced ideas and concepts that I shuddered at and could not stop thinking about for days.

groggo This is a disturbing and important film that peels away many layers of meaning about the mutual manipulation that takes place between men and women. It examines love and need, but what it examines most of all is loneliness. It is a devastating critique of the phony love that is dispensed for money, and what it does both to those dispensing the money and those who profit from it.The scene of almost all the action in this film is the Rakkyo Cafe, the most popular 'host bar' in Osaka, where women seek the favours of 'host boys' such as the exploitative yet empathetically decent Issei, owner of the bar. The women spend outrageous amounts of money to be pampered and pandered to (and systematically lied to) by these highly skilled and well-groomed young men who are similar to male versions of the famous geishas. The difficulty in maintaining this kind of artifice is evidenced by the high turnover: in many of these bars in Osaka (there are about 100), 'host boys' make a lot of money, but they can't tolerate the stress and demands for very long; few last longer than a year. Despite being swarmed over by women who profess their adoration for them, the men do not get intimately involved with them. If they get too close, if they have sex with them, the men will lose their illusion of perfection, and will no longer be 'marketable'. These young women pursue a 'happiness place' a la Peter Pan's Neverland. They search for a kind of love that exists only in illusion and fantasy. Essai is an articulate and thoughtful man who understands all too well the control he has over the women. He also understands the emotional price he is paying for engaging in this activity. He 'loves' them, offers them solace, but he has become profoundly disaffected. 'I can't trust any woman any more,' he says. This superb film (director Jake Clennell offers no narration and lets his camera do all the work) shows that Issei and all of these well-paid gigolos (without the sex), as joyous as they appear on the screen, desperately want to be loved. They end their long nights at dawn, and go home alone. These shining boys and their adoring 'girlfriends' are, in the end, desperately lonely people.This film, in a larger sense, is a metaphor for modern society as a whole. In the midst of plenty, loneliness and alienation abound.

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.