Rotten Tomatoes Logo Do you want to see ‘Tokyo!’?

Tokyo! (2008)

tomatometer

73

Average Rating: 6.3/10
Reviews Counted: 66
Fresh: 48 | Rotten: 18

An imaginative, if uneven, love letter to a city that signals a great creative enterprise by its three contributing directors.

82

Average Rating: 6.7/10
Critic Reviews: 17
Fresh: 14 | Rotten: 3

An imaginative, if uneven, love letter to a city that signals a great creative enterprise by its three contributing directors.

audience

68

liked it
Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 11,330

My Rating

Movie Info

Directors Michel Gondry, Bong Joon-ho, and Leos Carax each direct a segment of this triptych feature about life in 21st century Tokyo. The saga begins with Gondry's segment, entitled "Interior Design," about a young couple who moves in with an old friend while attempting to establish themselves in Tokyo. Hiroko (Ayako Fujitani) and Akira (Ryo Kase) have just arrived in the city. They're eager to launch their careers, but first they'll have to find a place to stay. Though Hiroko's old friend

Jun 30, 2009

$0.2M

Vitagraph Films

Cast

All Critics (66) | Top Critics (17) | Fresh (48) | Rotten (18) | DVD (2)

Paris, New York and even Toronto have all gotten their due in a recent wave of city-centric omnibus films that let world-renowned auteurs run wild in their streets. Yet none of these yielded anything as strange or as idiosyncratic as Tokyo!

June 5, 2009 Full Review Source: Toronto Star | Comment
Toronto Star
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Perhaps it is inevitable as three foreign directors train their lenses on that unique island culture of the East that all three are propelled by fantasy or science fiction, and suggest more alienation from Tokyo than affection for the great city.

June 5, 2009 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | Comment
Globe and Mail
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Overall, Tokyo! is two-thirds of a good movie.

April 23, 2009 Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | Comment
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Top Critic IconTop Critic

All three films deal with things hidden, or disappearing, or suppressed. But Tokyo, if anything, becomes more of a mystery after Tokyo! than it was before.

April 9, 2009 Full Review Source: Washington Post | Comment
Washington Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Tokyo! is a must-see for the Gondry segment, and a strange, diverting pleasure for the rest.

April 9, 2009 Full Review Source: Philadelphia Inquirer | Comment
Philadelphia Inquirer
Top Critic IconTop Critic

If you've seen Paris, je t'aime or New York Stories, you know the rate of return on these urban omnibuses is variable, and so it is here. Go in expecting minor pleasures and you'll be fine.

April 9, 2009 Full Review Source: Boston Globe | Comment
Boston Globe
Top Critic IconTop Critic

My problem is that even though the three weird stories are intriguing and of interest in their own right, but when compiled as one film they seemed undeveloped.

November 9, 2011 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | Comment
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

All three screenplays were probably composed on the plane to Japan. With any luck, this trend will die out.

August 16, 2011 Full Review Source: East Bay Express | Comment
East Bay Express

If Tokyo! has a unifying idea, it's the devastating effect loneliness has on the psyche, an interesting choice given Tokyo's status as one of the world's densest cities.

August 30, 2009 Full Review Source: Washington Times | Comment

Tickles, repulses, and beguiles

August 25, 2009 Full Review Source: CinePassion | Comment
CinePassion

Sandwiched between Gondry and Bong's variously euphoric entries, Carax's contribution seems either a work of deep cynicism from an inveterate party-pooper or a welcome satirical sour note from one of the great talents of 80s and 90s French cinema.

August 8, 2009 Full Review Source: Reverse Shot | Comment
Reverse Shot

Some may consider it a callous critical evaluation. In truth, it's nothing short of a luxuriant love letter.

June 21, 2009 Full Review Source: PopMatters | Comment
PopMatters

The most deft touch belongs to Gondry.

June 5, 2009 Full Review Source: Jam! Movies | Comment
Jam! Movies

The oddness is sort of refreshing.

May 14, 2009 Full Review Source: Deseret News, Salt Lake City | Comment
Deseret News, Salt Lake City

This triptypch of short flicks about the Japanese capital by non-Japanese filmmakers is wildly intriguing to me, as someone who has never been there but would like to visit...

May 12, 2009 Full Review Source: Flick Filosopher | Comment
Flick Filosopher

Taken together, the three movies in Tôkyô! create a frightful, smart, and lingering impression.

May 7, 2009 Full Review Source: PopMatters | Comment
PopMatters

With the three-director -- Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, Bong Joon-ho -- multistory film Tokyo!, the first really exciting piece of filmmaking of 2009 comes to town.

April 29, 2009 Full Review Source: Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC) | Comment
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

A collection of three films that try to capture the experience of living in that crowded Japanese city.

April 24, 2009 Full Review Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press | Comment
St. Paul Pioneer Press

Grasping a unifying theme from the three distinct tales is one of the pleasures of watching the movie. Loneliness gets my vote, but Tokyo! is adventurous enough to spark many different theories.

April 16, 2009 Full Review Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | Comment
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Three very different directors...travel to the land of the lotus blossom to lend their collective eyes to a world that is Tokyo!

April 9, 2009 Full Review Source: Reeling Reviews | Comment
Reeling Reviews

Tokyo! wins points for one thing: These are stories you definitely haven't seen before, and nowadays originality is sometimes enough.

April 9, 2009 Full Review Source: Washington City Paper | Comment
Washington City Paper
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Tokyo!

Since Paris has an anthology film on the theme of love, Tokyo gets one on the theme of weirdness, from Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, and Bong Joon-ho. Three segments: the girlfriend of an experimental filmmaker feels useless until she undergoes an inexplicable metamorphosis; a shambling man-creature named Merde rises

May 23, 2010
366weirdmovies
Greg S

Super Reviewer

Loved the first of these three short stories, third one was pretty good also. Second one... well... not to say it was a bad short film, but it certainly left me cold and I could do without ever seeing it again.

May 16, 2009
romy861

Super Reviewer

Tokyo! Quotes

No quotes approved yet for Tokyo!. Logged in users can submit quotes.

Movies Like Tokyo!

Latest News for Tokyo!

March 5, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Watch Watchmen, But Caveat Emptor
This week at the movies, we've got Watchmen, the long-awaited adaptation of Alan Moore's classic...

What's Hot On RT

Luis Guzman
Luis Guzman

What are his 10 best movies ever?

<em>Amazing Spider-Man</em>
Amazing Spider-Man

See the all-new action-packed trailer!

The Avengers!
The Avengers!

Five new Marvelous pictures

Total Recall
Total Recall

Unconventional Superheroes

Top Movie Quizzes

LEGO Mania: 2011 Best Picture Nominees
by natalie - 18,539 taken
created 12 months ago
How Much Do You Know About Leonardo DiCaprio?
by natalie - 44,360 taken
created 15 months ago
Pixar Movies!
by jdikwlzviv - 27,110 taken
created 15 months ago
The Wizards of Harry Potter
by jdikwlzviv - 27,614 taken
created 15 months ago
Help | About | Jobs | Newsletter | Critics Submission | API | Licensing | Blog | Developers | Mobile