A couple months ago I saw TOKYO! at a film festival in San Francisco. One of the reasons I went to the screening was because of Michel Gondry, who directed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Be Kind Rewind. His piece was actually one of three short films that are in Tokyo! Each story takes place in the great city, but offers something different. The first, by Gondry, is about a young couple who are going in different directions. The second, by Carax, is about a sewer dweller who terrorizes the streets of Tokyo. And the thrid, by Joon-Ho, is about a OCD man who leaves his house for the first time in 10 years after falling for the pizza delivery girl.I'm excited Tokyo! is coming to Blu ray because it now has a chance to reach a wider audience. I think this particular film will benefit from a High Defintion transfer because of the different locations and colors used throughout the film. My personal favorite story of the three was Gondry's, but one of the great things about this film is that everyone has an opinion as to which one was the better story. Tokyo! is a visually appealing film that is worth checking out.
INTERIOR DESIGN Michel Gondry's (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) piece follows a young couple as they try to set themselves up in Tokyo. The young man's ambition is clear become a film director. His girlfriend however is far more indecisive and cannot escape the feeling that she's losing control of her life. Directionless, both are beginning to go under in this vast city, until the young woman becomes the object of a bizarre transformation.
MERDE Leos Carax (Lovers on the Bridge) spins the tale of a mysterious creature that spreads panic in the streets of Tokyo. Through this monster's provocative and destructive behavior, he arouses both passion and repulsion...until the moment he is captured.
SHAKING TOKYO Bong Joon Ho (The Host) gives us the story of a hikikomori, an agoraphobic man that has been shut up in his apartment for 10 years. When a pizza delivery girl faints in his home during an earthquake, the unthinkable happens he falls in love. Shortly after, he learns the girl has also become a hikikomori and now to find her he must dare to cross the threshold between his apartment and the rest of the world.
This visually stunning film addresses the timeless question of whether we shape cities, or if cities shape us.
I saw it at the Miami Film Festival and absolutely loved it, I can't wait till it comes out on DVD.I sat down to "Tokyo!" with uncertain expectations. I suppose, in many ways, I had anticipated these vignettes by three different international directors would be an homage or love letter to the city in the vein of "Paris, Je T'aime." Well, I've been wrong before and I'll certainly be wrong again! This trio of short films by the esteemed talents of Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, and Joon-ho Bong re-imagine the city as a dark subterranean fantasy world. Strange, to say the least, I think it's fair to proclaim that "Tokyo!" stands as a unique expression of cinematic imagination. Whether, in the long run, you'll love or hate these films is probably the big question as they are certainly designed to inspire strong feelings. But, one thing is clear, you've never seen anything quite like this collection of oddities.
Gondry, whose eccentricities worked best in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," starts things off with "Interior Design." "Design" follows a young couple who move to Tokyo to seek their fortune. As the guy starts to succeed and adapt, his girlfriend assumes a more peripheral role. Her feelings of inadequacies and uselessness ultimately manifest with a physical transformation that is brilliantly devised and slyly hysterical. It, as a whole, is my favorite segment! But Carax's "Merde" easily contains some of the trio's most inspired moments. A creature from the sewers emerges daily to terrorize the citizens on the streets. Looking more like a deranged leprechaun than an actual monster, his strange--but largely benign--attacks escalate to bloody brutality when he happens upon a cache of weapons. I absolutely loved these early scenes. When captured, his subsequent legal battle captivates a national audience. I'm not entirely sure if I understood the point of Carax's contribution, however, but it is an intriguing entertainment. And last "The Host" creator, Joon-ho Bong, developed "Shaking Tokyo." This cerebral piece concerns a recluse who finally gathers the courage to venture into the world after being entranced by a strange pizza delivery girl. A commentary on isolation, this was perhaps the least satisfying vignette for me.
"Tokyo!" is a must-see film for anyone who loves adventurous cinema. From a purely conceptual standpoint, I adored the ideas in these mini-films. I don't know, particularly, if the three combine to form any universal themes--but they are outrageously different. Perplexing and odd, I will remember "Tokyo!" and am sure to recommend it to select friends. But it's definitely not for everyone! So beware. Loopy, insane, baffling, but fun--I'd rate this as 3 1/2 stars generally with an upward round for the bizarre factor. KGHarris, 1/11.
Read Best Reviews of Tokyo! (2008) Here
Full-length feature films that are really just compilations of shorter movies usually revolving around a single topic or theme tend not to work out all that well in the long one. Either the limited running time afforded to each individual story results in characters and plotlines that are too sketchy and underdeveloped to fully capture our interest, or the quality of each individual part varies so wildly that the movie as a whole fails to satisfy.After "Paris je t'amie" a few years back and "Tokyo!" now, it would appear that, at some point, every "exotic" city will have a multi-part cinematic valentine to call its own. And whereas "Paris, je t'aime," not surprisingly, applied a romantic patina to its setting, "Tokyo!," also not surprisingly, has opted for a more sci-fi and metaphysical-oriented approach in exploring its locale.
In the first tale, "Interior Design," directed by Michel Gondy, Akira and Hiroki are a young couple who have come to the city to look for work and a place to live. He's an avant garde filmmaker, she his part time assistant and fulltime girlfriend. The movie deals with the tension that develops between not only Akira and Hiroki over finances and their future together but between the couple and the female friend whose cramped apartment they`re all staying in at the moment. Then, just at the point where all is beginning to seem hopeless, Hiroki involuntarily turns into a chair. You were expecting something different, perhaps?
"Interior Design," is of interest primarily in the way that it goes from the prosaic to the surreal without the slightest transition or warning. It's amusing to watch as the characters' lives suddenly come to parallel the movies he makes and the imaginative scenarios they are constantly playing out in their relationship. That one of those scenarios suddenly turns out to be real or is it? is all just a part of the game.
The second episode, "Merde," directed by Leos Carax, is even more over-the-edge in its content than "Interior Design." Denis Lavant plays a grizzled sort of man/creature in a green suit who emerges periodically from his home in the sewers to terrorize the understandably distraught citizens who inhabit the world above. Unsure of how to cope with such a menace, the Japanese government calls in a French lawyer with a goatee that perfectly matches the creature's to help with the crisis. Unfortunately, this highly stylized segment becomes a grueling, heavy-handed polemic against racism, xenophobia and capital punishment, devoid of charm, grace or even a modicum of entertainment value.
Luckily, in terms of quality, things pick up considerably with "Shaking Tokyo," easily the best of the bunch in both consistency and style. Imaginatively directed by Bong Joon-ho, "Shaking Tokyo" is a lyrical and poetic tale of a "hikikomori" a person with a pathological phobia of leaving the house who has to figure out what to do when he falls in love with a woman who, after meeting him once, turns into a hikikomori herself.
Thus, as with many of these omnibus movie packages, "Tokyo!" becomes, ultimately, a thing of bits and pieces, of two episodes that work and one that doesn't (not a bad ratio as these things go, actually). My advice, therefore, would be to watch parts one and three and skip part two altogether.I rented this years ago and OMG it's great!!
So I bought it here, great service and product!!
A must see!! There is subtitles though, also it
starts off slow but trust me it's a great movie.
3 short stories and 3 directors. The stories are
very creative and unlike any I've seen recently.
Here is a little about it I read on wikipedia:
a 2008 anthology film containing three segments written by three non-Japanese directors, all of which were filmed in Tokyo, Japan. Michel Gondry directed "Interior Design", Leos Carax directed "Merde", and Bong Joon-ho directed "Shaking Tokyo".
The three story titles are:
"Interior Design"
"Merde"
"Shaking Tokyo"
I couldn't pick a favorite, I love all three stories and they are very different from one another.
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