Best Wishes to All (Mina ni sachi are)

This feature length Best Wishes to All (2023) is an extension of Yuta Shimotsu’s 2022 short film of the same name. The feature was co-written with Rumi Kakuta and expands on the characters yet maintains the central idea and crucially the dread the short.=
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A nursing student (Kotone Furukawa) from Tokyo is visiting her grandparents in rural Japan, a place she remembers from her childhood and due to meet up with her parents later at the house.

Her grandparents are typically hospitable laying on fine meal with the expected small talk. That is until they ask if she is happy, hesitant she says she is. This is knocked later when they start to snort like pigs, and she hears strange noises in the house.
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Taking a walk later on she meets with an old school friend (Matsudai Koya), a farmer who has taken over from his father. Life has been tough for them and he’s disappointed when he reaches out to her, which she gently rejects. Back at the house her grandfather warns against seeing him again. An incident at the house terrifies the student and she runs away meeting the farmer and his son. They clearly know what’s up and going on around them.

Steady pacing and direction by Shimotsu opens up the story in her short to deliver a film of disturbing images that also delivers a few more political messages. Without giving too much away, there are things in the house that ensure happiness for the grandparents and family. Yet they can’t be taken for granted and a disturbance like the student could ruin their idyll.

As far as the horror goes that is effective with some nasty images and incidents, though not going over the top and in keeping with the oppressive dread and weirdness of earlier scenes.
The other element isn’t that subtle once in gear and boils down to that someone’s happiness is likely to be at someone’s else’s expense.
A person’s £££ suit is likely of the back of another’s sub £ earnings. And its logic is that no one is truly blameless. The sweat shop worker could be happier than the worker who provided the material. The purchaser of the item is likely to be happier than the shop worker. The purchaser will probably not as happy as his boss or other. And so on until it can go any further, and it is finite.

The film itself has a very 70’s appearance mainly down to the pale colour palate, which enhances its overall bleakness. And Shimotsu and Kakuta’s attempts to bleed in some optimism through the lead’s scepticism don't really work as there’s no confidence of a stand against a social structure that by and large everyone accepts, uses and is happy with.

Best Wishes of All will be on Shudder from 13 June 2025.