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Grade: B

Verdict: An engaging comedy-drama about an unusual household.

Details: Starring Iben Hjejle and Anders W. Berthelsen. In Danish with subtitles. Rated R for profanity, violence and strong sexuality. 1 hour, 39 minutes.

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Review: When Kresten (Anders W. Berthelsen) tells his new wife that his father has died, it means more than an abbreviated honeymoon. After all, until now the young businessman has told Claire (Sofie Grabol) that he has no living relatives.

That's the kickoff of "Mifune," a charmingly shaggy romance that finds Kresten returning to his country roots and falling for a sunny hooker. Think of a Danish mixture of "Pretty Woman" and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," and you'll get an idea of the quirky tone.

Leaving his wife behind in Copenhagen, Kresten returns to the bedraggled family farm to deal with the funeral and decide what to do with his older brother Rud (Jesper Asholt). Mentally impaired, Rud is like an overgrown child, sleeping beneath the table where his father's corpse rests and paying tribute at the funeral by walking backward into the church, carrying blazing sparklers.

Just when the "Odd Couple/Rain Man" interplay of the two men starts to get tiresome, the movie introduces its most important character, Liva (Iben Hjejle), a prostitute who decides to change her line of work when a sicko stalker starts leaving creepy messages on her answering machine.

When she answers Kresten's newspaper ad, he tells her, "You don't look like a housekeeper." She doesn't look like a hooker, either. But "Mifune," co-written and directed by Soren Kragh-Jacobsen, isn't exactly aiming for realism. As it explores the unlikely menage of Kresten, Liva and Rud (and eventually Liva's rebellious kid brother), the movie is always nudging the limits of our tolerance for silliness.

The title, for instance, comes from Kresten's habit of soothing Rud by imitating the samurai moves of Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune. And Rud is convinced that Liva is actually "Linda," an in-the-flesh embodiment of the space heroine in one of his sci-fi comic books. Somehow, all this whimsy never gets too cloying. The long, twilit summer nights of the region enhance the plot's fablelike tone.

"Mifune" has weaknesses. The female characters are simplistic. Kresten's wife is a status-obsessed shrew, while Liva is a mother-whore ideal who represents all things to the men, tending their needs like a blond Snow White. That makes Hjejle's performance especially commendable. Her mix of pragmatism and radiance grounds the movie, and you can see why director Stephen Frears, after seeing this film, hurried to cast her as the female lead in "High Fidelity."

This comedy-drama is the latest movie shot according to the "Dogma 95" rules laid down by Lars Von Trier and fellow filmmakers, including Thomas Vinterberg ("The Celebration"). This means that scenes were shot with only available light and natural sound, and there are no special effects or extreme action. "Mifune" is a solid reminder that good movies don't need gimmicks, just an interesting story and appealing actors.

— Steve Murray, Cox News Service

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