This hilarious satire on Japanese family life also updates that genre of Japanese films that has painstakingly portrayed the rituals and tribulations of the middle classes for so many years. What we have here is the Hello Kitty generation. Writer-director Yoshimitsu Morita zeroes in on one family of four who live crammed into a small suburban apartment, where the kids' gadget-filled rooms seem divided by a disappearing membrane and Mother and Father must have their heart-to-hearts out in the car. If Ozu politely met his families at floor level to observe the circular patterns of dinner, Morita plunges right in with this group whose dinners are strictly horizontal affairs. The plot revolves around the family's concern for the academic performance of the youngest son, Shigeyuki. Mother and Father abdicate authority to an enigmatic tutor, Yoshimoto, who seems to have graduated from a Yakusa film rather than a university and who wreaks havoc on the boy's adolescent sensibilities with his strongarm tactics and his obscure sexual innuendos. Winner of Japan's “Oscar,” the Kinema Junpo Best One award, The Family Game was also featured at The Museum of Modern Art's New Directors/New Films and at the San Francisco Film Festival '84.