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.
Tokyo! (2009)
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Reviews Counted:60
Fresh:45
Rotten:15
Average Rating:6.3/10
Consensus: An imaginative, if uneven, love letter to a city that signals a great creative enterprise by its three contributing directors.
Rated: Not Rated
Genre: Foreign Films
Theatrical Release:Mar 6, 2009 Limited
Box Office: $221,597
Synopsis:
In Tokyo!, three visionary directors (Michel Gondry, Leos Carax and Bong Joon-ho) come together for an omnibus triptych examining the nature of one unforgettable city as it’s shaped by the...
In Tokyo!, three visionary directors (Michel Gondry, Leos Carax and Bong Joon-ho) come together for an omnibus triptych examining the nature of one unforgettable city as it’s shaped by the disparate people who live, work (and run amok) inside an enormous, constantly evolving, densely populated Japanese megalopolis -- the enchanting and inimitable Tokyo.
Interior Design (Michel Gondry).
A young couple tries to set themselves up in Tokyo. The young man's ambition is clear -- to become a film director. His girlfriend, far more indecisive, cannot escape the vague feeling that she's losing control of her life. Directionless, both are beginning to go under in this vast city until the young woman, utterly alone, becomes the object of a bizarre transformation...
Merde(Leos Carax)
A mysterious creature spreads panic in the streets of Tokyo by means of his provocative and destructive behavior. This man, dubbed "The Creature of the Sewers" by the media, arouses both passion and repulsion...until the moment he is captured...
<>
Shaking Tokyo (Bong Joon-Ho)
For more than 10 years, he's been a hikikomori. He lives shut up in his apartment, strictly limiting all contact with the outside world to an absolute minimum. When a pizza delivery girl faints in his home during an earthquake, the unthinkable happens -- he falls in love. Shortly after, he learns that the girl has in turn become a hikikomori. Will he dare cross the threshold that separates his apartment from the rest of the world?
Rhapsody, psychogeography, urban valentine, freak show, mindwalk and many other things, Tokyo! is a fantasy in three movements that will make you see one of the world’s greatest cities -- if not any city -- with a new point of view.
In the tradition of such films as New York Stories, Night on Earth, Paris Je T'Aime and its forthcoming sequel New York I Love You, Tokyo! addresses the timeless question of whether we shape cities, or if cities shape us -- while in the process, revealing the rich humanity at the heart of modern urban life.
--© Official Site
Starring: Yuu Aoi, Jean-Francois Balmer, Julie Dreyfus, Ayako Fujitani
Starring: Yuu Aoi, Jean-Francois Balmer, Julie Dreyfus, Ayako Fujitani, Ryo Kase, Denis Lavant, Nao Omori, Teruyuki Kagawa, Naoto Takenaka, Satoshi Tsumabuki, Hiroshi Yamamoto, Yoshiyoshi Arakawa
Director: Oh Bong-Joon, Leos Carax, Michel Gondry
Director: Oh Bong-Joon, Leos Carax, Michel Gondry
Screenwriter: Oh Bong-Joon, Leos Carax, Michel Gondry
Studio: Liberation Entertainment
Reviews for Tokyo!
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.
Some may consider it a callous critical evaluation. In truth, it's nothing short of a luxuriant love letter.
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!
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.
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...
Taken together, the three movies in Tôkyô! create a frightful, smart, and lingering impression.
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.
A collection of three films that try to capture the experience of living in that crowded Japanese city.
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.
Three very different directors...travel to the land of the lotus blossom to lend their collective eyes to a world that is Tokyo!
Tokyo! wins points for one thing: These are stories you definitely haven't seen before, and nowadays originality is sometimes enough.
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.
Although each portion of Tokyo! has a distinct flavor, this sampler of undercooked fish stories has a cumulative effect, one that is trippy if not toxic.
Tokyo! is a must-see for the Gondry segment, and a strange, diverting pleasure for the rest.
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.
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