Happyend – SFF Review

Globally, people are experiencing a deep contradicting state of connection and disconnect. At our fingertips, the lives of others are a screen away but we have never been more divided. Global solidarity keeps us cognisant of the real issues while local tensions are compounding. Similarly, technology can enable safety but also tighten control. Within a fictional near future setting, we are challenged to confront this in Neo Sora’s Happyend.

Happyend centres on a group of friends Kou (YukitoHidaka), Yuta (Hayato Kurihara), Tomu (Arazi), Ming (Shina Peng) & Ata-chan (Yuta Hayashi). While the main characters are in high school, what they are grappling with are ripples of Japan’s history. We explore the changing dynamics within the friendship as well as consider more broadly the politics and hierarchy in Japan.

The film centers on best friends Kou and Yuta and the opening scene shows the boys successfully sneaking into a club before the night ends by police shutting it down. Best friends since they were kids, there is a growing distance between them as Kou becomes aware and activated by the difference and indifference of people around him to the tactics of the school and government. Yuta has never had to be aware of the world around him and refuses to reckon with how his best friend might be mistreated because of the privileges he has. We also have an impending earthquake being used as a device for rising tension, similar to the heat wave in Spike Lee’s, Do The Right Thing.

There is a complicated history between Korea and Japan dating back to the 1800s where, like many histories involving colonialism, the attitudes can still be present in people today. We see this through the way Kou is treated by the school as well as authorities. Identified as a Zainichi Korean, police would ask for his ID even though Kou would have to explain many times he is not legally required to carry at all times. At school, the principal would make not so veiled racist remarks about how his ‘demographic’ are less than.

Students and faculty arrive at school to witness the Principal’s expensive yellow sports car being flipped vertically. The stark contrast of excessive wealth in an educational setting served as a commentary to the heavy handed labelling from the Principal declaring this to be a ‘terrorist attack’ and concern for safety. This labelling and hysteria leads to Panopty, a surveillance and point scoring system, to be installed at the school. Announced as a way to ensure safety, we start to see the ability to control and further patrol students.

The friends witness a protest against the government which ignites something within Kou, often reflecting the inevitability of the earthquake in the film. He joins the group where he becomes close with Fumi (KilalaInori)who we are introduced to earlier as the matter of fact truth teller interjecting, during an inane chat about police, that police are bureaucrats with weapons in place to uphold those in power. In this new found activation and activism, Kou struggles with the balance of rage but also being conscious of the dangers of acting on it

where his safety is in danger. Or as his mother so poetically retorts, ‘Why can’t you rebel in a cute way?’.

Kou is further conflicted with his anger towards Yuta when he vents to Tomu, Japanese and African American, and is gently humbled to realise what’s been is just being seen by him now. When the students organise a sit-in to remove Panopty, we also see which students aren’t as invested and which students knew they had to be active participants in the inevitability of change. While the ending can be seen as generally hopeful and positive, there is a simmering tremble of restlessness for the characters and audience to remain aware of.

Films can offer layered commentary and use of a focused world being a reflection of wider politics. Neo Sora goes further and becomes more of a house of mirrors in Happyend.Not all foreigners experience the same levels of racism and some are more interested in assimilation and not standing out (whether right or wrong).