REVIEW; FARM-FRESH 'MIFUNE' DELIVERS DAY-OLD GOODS.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

In ``Mifune,'' a successful young Danish businessman gets an alarming call the morning after his remarkably strenuous wedding night. His father has suddenly passed away, which comes as a shock to his bride (who is, of course, his boss's daughter). She, like all of Kresten's other Copenhagen acquaintances, believed that he was an orphan.

It seems, you see, that Kresten (Anders W. Berthelsen) was ashamed of his rural origins in apparently urban-prejudiced modern Denmark. While this may come as a surprise to those of us who primarily associate the tiny country with dairy products, Kresten must, embarrassing as it may be, go back to the family farm and settle affairs. He figures it'll take a few days, tops, to engage a real estate broker and arrange for institutionalizing his mentally handicapped brother, Rud (Jesper Asholt).

Of course, things don't quite go according to plan.

Theoretically - and this being one of those Dogma 95 Vow of Chastity productions, everything here should theoretically be quite theoretical - the connection between the film's title and bucolic Scandinavian comedy goes back to ``The Seven Samurai,'' in which the great Toshiro Mifune played a peasant masquerading as a member of the warrior class. To make matters more accessible for the cinema illiterate, Kresten dresses up like Mifune every now and then to calm his disturbed brother's jangled nerves, since something about the Japanese actor provided childhood amusement.

But it doesn't take long for our corporate warrior to go pretty country himself, slacking around the back 40 and putting on flannel. He can claim he's stuck there because Rud violently resists resettlement, but he really digs the comparative lack of responsibility. And when he entices a city girl - actually, a prostitute - to come out and care for the brother, Kresten has even more incentive to get in touch with his inertia.

Liva (Iben Hjejle) is lovely, and Rud likes her because he thinks she's one of his favorite comic book heroines. She has a bratty adolescent brother herself - she only hooks, golden heart that she is, to fund his boarding school education - and when that kid moves to the farm, the surrogate family is complete. Dysfunctional maybe, but then, troubled movie clans rank right up there behind cheese when we think of Scandinavian exports, don't they?

Here's the thing about this Dogma nonsense: It is, with some evidence of self-joshing, a list of back-to-basics rules filmmakers agree to follow that will supposedly result in more honest, character-based movies. In practice, it kind of works. The first Dogma film to reach these shores was ``The Celebration'' a couple of years ago, and it fooled some into thinking that its angry cliches about incest were fresh and stimulating because the movie wasn't lit very well.

``Mifune,'' too, eschews all but natural light sources. But this film's more experienced director, Soren Kragh-Jacobsen, composes much better-looking pictures than ``Celebration's'' Thomas Vinterberg showed us. The older filmmaker's characters are also quirkier and funnier, although they exhibit bracingly credible shortcomings.

That said, ``Mifune,'' like ``Celebration,'' bears an almost hokey devotion to tried-and-true narrative notions that are hardly out of step with Hollywood formula. The championing of simplicity, ad hoc family values and lovable fools in which the film revels may be presented with more rigor and honesty than cutesy commercial fare would allow.

But farm fresh, these insights ain't.

THE FACTS

--The film: ``Mifune'' (R; sex, nudity, language, drug use, violence).

--The stars: Anders W. Berthelsen, Jesper Asholt, Iben Hjejle, Emil Tarding.

--Behind the scenes: Directed by Soren Kragh-Jacobsen. Written by Kragh-Jacobsen and Anders Thomas Jensen. Produced by Birgitte Hald. Released by Sony Pictures Classics.

--Running time: One hour, 39 minutes.

--Playing: Music Hall, Beverly Hills; Monicas, Santa Monica.

--Our rating: Three stars.

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Box: THE FACTS (see text)