Customer Reviews

The Great Happiness Space (Original Japanese Version with English Subtitles)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I don't know much about the Japanese industry on this but I thought it was a interesting outlook. Throughout the world almost everyone that visits strip clubs or even brothels enters the exchange with the understanding that it's just flesh for money. "The Great Happiness Space," is a documentary by director Jake Clennell. Clennel profound us into the world of Japanese host clubs in after hours Osaka. Here, young men spend their nights providing physical but mostly emotional attention to women - or clients as they're referred to. In the early evening men pace the streets and woo women into a club in hopes of scoring a wealthy girl in needs of lip service.

Upon first visit the woman selects a "host" from a book, and he becomes the person that she will always spend time with. Often multiple women spend time with the same host. Competition, more accurately financial competition, ensues for the host's attention. A talented host can find themselves making thousands of dollars per night. In the U.S. women have the upper hand in nightlife entertainment. They are handed free drinks and always command attention from men individually or in groups. Even strip clubs, once considered blighted trash accessible only from neon lit back alleys, have become more acceptable as entertainment venues for both men and women.

The opposite exists at 'Cafe Rakkyo' in Osaka. The men of this and other host clubs seduce women with sweet talk, understanding, champagne, and large stuffed teddy bears. These women pay out the nose for the attention and companionship of the hosts. And they know that the attention and companionship is an act, but conversely they admit that an emotional connection exists. If the women suffer emotionally then the men suffer equally as much physically. Owner Issei explains that the trickiest part is keeping female clients "in the dream," - that is the host must continue to sell the dream that they could be together and in love at some point. When reality hits, as it did for one client, the game is done.

My only fall out about this film is that it dragged a bit long and not really develop into any profound conclusions. Both sides are brutally honest in discussing their realities, to the point it makes everyone else in the world seem like an opportunist just like them. The truth is, this is what everyone else is doing in every relationship in their lives. Telling people what they want to hear, going along with what happens at work because you need the paycheck and compromising your virtues to the point of denial. The gigolos convince themselves what they're doing is justifiable. Strangely, the men seemed more effeminate than the women. Putting a lot of effort into their hair and jewelry, to the point of becoming freakish. Another interesting analogy is that these gigolo boys seem to be "pimps" to the females in the movie. The females sell their bodies to make money to spend on the males. I certainly don't believe Osaka as a whole is nearly that seedy. But strange subcultures exist and are fascinating.

This is an excellent documentary about a host club in Osaka called Cafe Rakkyo. The owner is an energetic, charismatic guy named Issei. Issei and his fellow "host boys" spend the evening talking, singing, flirting, drinking and sometimes having sex with a variety of women who pay big money for their company.

I expected the majority of the female customers to be older and perhaps unattractive. But instead most were as young and good looking as their male hosts. In fact, about 70%-80% were prostitutes and others who worked in Japan's vast and very kinky sex industry. This explains how these women could afford to pay so much for an evening's entertainment. Issei claimed to be able to make as much as $50,000 a month while one of the female customers said she had spent as much as $7,000 in a single night. The host boys' favorite technique of manipulation was to create the "illusion of love" and thus get the infatuated girl to keep returning in hopes of an eventual relationship outside the club. As another reviewer mentioned, there also seemed to be an element of pimping involved. Many of the women in the sex industry tried to rationalize their jobs by saying they needed to keep making the big bucks so they could afford to "support" their beloved host boy.

Trying to understand the pyschology behind all this is a complicated task and I am certainly not the one to do it. But one thing I did notice, while travelling in Japan, is that none of the 4 women I dated would allow me to pay for anything, even dinner, and so all costs were shared. My only explanation is that traditional Japanese society is so sexist that perhaps these "modern" women are determined to escape the bonds of male domination by using their newly acquired economic power. That certainly seemed to be part of the "turn on" for the female customers at Cafe Rakkyo.

In any case, I found the subject matter to be fascinating and would recommend this doc to anyone interested in human sexuality and gender identity.

The Great Happiness Space is a unique documentary about "host clubs" in Osaka, Japan. The hosts are male prostitutes who entertain lonely women at the clubs. The movie is fascinating both for what it says about Japanese culture and for the reasons women give for hiring prostitutes.

Viewers leave the familiar and descend into Osaka's neon-filled nightlife. The filmmakers focus both on the hosts and on their clients. The different perspectives give the film depth.

The men are money-hungry cynics. Some are making small fortunes, but very few would-be hosts succeed. Hosts tell conflicting stories about "how far they go" with clients. All of the men have longish, tinted hair; by Western standards, they look somewhat feminine. Viewers see amusing scenes of hosts trying to "hustle" women who are walking down the street.

The surprisingly-young women who visit the clubs do so in hopes of bonding with a host. One woman confesses that she broke up with her fiancee after falling in love with her host. The viewer's heart breaks for her when the host later tells the filmmaker what he thinks of her.

My wife and I both loved this film. If I had to complain, I would say that the filmmakers might have asked the men about their lives away from work - especially their "real" relationships with women. The film is in Japanese with English subtitles; it didn't bother us, but some people dislike subtitles.

To learn about a different side of Japan, The Great Happiness Space is a difficult film to top.

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.

I found this fascinating. It's a lifestyle I didn't even know existed. There's an ethereal quality to the main characters and I found the overall ambiance of this film to be wistful and poignant. It's about male escorts and their interplay with their "clients". It's worth noting that men don't appear to be able to emotionally handle this trade any better than women do. I may go back and watch it again now that it's been a few years.

Say you're a single / bored / lonely Japanese lady. You hire a "host boy" for an evening. He serves as your sexless prostitute while you hang out in his club. He sells to you only his time and dazzling conversational skills. What a great plan, everything is working great!

Riiiiight. The host boys are wonderful characters, but the lady-patrons steal the show. Midway through, and surprisingly, the film changes gears from foreign little Japanese oddity to a very very interesting social commentary. This documentary is a gem.

Full review on FellWitness dot com

I loved The Great Happiness Space. I only heard about it through blogs about Asia. It gave the viewer an inside look at a subculture that one would not get the chance to see. Host clubs are not popular in mainstream North America, so it was especially interesting. Since it was made my a sociologist, I loved it. I like factual films and documentaries so I loved this type of film.


The only thing that I was not happy about was the condition of my the used copy that I purchased. I paid $40 and it came with a phtotcopied cover. I was a little ticked off, because I wanted the picture...the guy is really handsome. I really wanted to watch it immediately so I didn't return it. Before you purchase it used, decide if you could do without a good quality cover. It may be worth the extra money to buy the new copy.

This documentary, "The Great Happiness Space," was very insightful about the positives and the negatives of being a Host in Japan. If you are interested in the lives of Japanese male hosts, buy this documentary.

It is a really nice doco of a Japanese-style "normal" heterosexual male escort business extorting money from young women supporting their dreams of love by prostituting themselves.

Extremely handsome young males disclose much of a Japanese culture in general.

Must to see.

Well, a documentary about male hosts in an Osaka Hosto Kurabu named "Rakkyo" ought to be interesting, no? Believe me, it is, and it's not so pretty and ideal as most people would tend to think. The atmosphere certainly isn't like those that girls see in manga like Ouran High Host Club or P.B.B. This documentary shows not only the dark side of the business itself but also the typical human nature of both men and women. Not only would you be disillusioned with the idea of male host clubs, you will be disillusioned with the idea of "love" and "romance" too if you watch this. But that's not to say that host clubs or this film are "bad." It's just that this documentary did a hella of a job at keeping things on a realistic level. Although I do have to refute some of details that is mentioned here in another Amazon review.

First of all do not make the mistake in thinking that these hosts are "male geisha(s)." The description of the DVD itself says that these hosts are "akin to male geishas," "akin" being the keyword here. Second of all do not take the english translation as it is. In the documentary, money figures were mentioned and I can tell you that the number itself is correct (the girls really did spend "hyakku-man en" on hosts----1,000,000 yen which is about roughly $9,235.32 USD). The film makers rounded up the figures.

This documentary is about an entertainment business and is, in some way, meant to entertain the audience. Do not approach this film with a serious eye, for this film does not fall under the field of academia and was not made for academic purposes.

I would have given this film a five star rating if it wasn't for the fact that I thought this film was too narrow in its scope. For some reason, I felt that the host club interviewed in this movie, Rakkyo, is in fact one of the low-end popular ones out there in Japan. I'm pretty sure there are other host clubs that are very different (though they're usually in Tokyo). This film only presented one host's view of the business, not others.