Paco and the Magical Book / Pako to Mana No Ehon Japanese Movie Dvd

Paco and the Magical Picture Book is like a cross between The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Alice in Wonderland. The story is set in one of the weirdest hospitals ever dreamt of and staffed with 1 doctor who likes to play dress up and 2 nurses (one violent and the other a vampire... maybe). The patients (or dwellers if you will) are few: a yakuza (mob guy) with scars, a bandaged fireman, a transvestite who liked to sing but couldn't, a man who doesn't want to be human, another man who just lives there with his vampiric wife and his crumudgeon uncle, Onuki, who has heart problems & apparently owns the place, a bunch of mummy like musicians, and Paco, a little girl with brain damage whose memory resets every day. Every morning when she wakes up she thinks it's her birthday and reads the same book, The Toad Prince. What the ghost did for Scrooge, Paco does for Onuki. He convinces the others to help him put on a play based on the book for Paco in hopes of helping her memory.I was delighted the entire time I watched this movie. At first it was almost like sensory overload, but at no time did I think I should stop watching it. I laughed instead. It's odd. It's fun. It's even assinine. It's also very entertaining. The cast led by well known actor, Koji Yakusho as Onuki, is fantastic. If you're not big on Japanese film, you may have seen him in Babel or Shall We Dance. If the director's goal was to bring the viewer into Paco's pop up book, I believe he succeeded.As a side, I wouldn't say this is for small children because there is a death; however, even that was done beautifully with imagination.