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France, Japan, Korea · 2008
1h 52m
Director Michel Gondry
Starring Ayako Fujitani, Ryo Kase, Ayumi Ito, Satoshi Tsumabuki
Genre Drama
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Tokyo! is an anthology of three short films by directors Michel Gondry (France), Leos Carax (France) and Bong Joon-ho (Korea), each of whom offers an imaginative and transnatural/supernatural glimpse into the Tokyo Megapolis. The stories focus on a sewer-dweller, a lonely man, and a happy couple.
Though these vignettes appear frivolous and inconsequential when set beside the directors' features, they will tickle the funny bones of a general audience. A safe choice for fantastic fests, worldwide cinemas will open to the kind of audiences who bought tickets to see "Paris J'taime" or "To Each His Own Cinema."
Chicago Reader by Andrea Gronvall
The best, Shaking Tokyo, stars the versatile Teruyuki Kagawa.
New York Daily News by Elizabeth Weitzman
Anyone looking for something original or unexpected should check out the trio of short films that comprise this entertaining ode to the titular city.
Mutants abound as each episode trips the light fantastic.
An uneven but enjoyable trio of films that take affectionate (and sometimes literal) aim at the Japanese capital.
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
Do these films reflect actual aspects of modern Tokyo? The hikikomori epidemic is apparently real enough, but the other two segments seem more deliberately fantastical. The entertainment value? Medium to high: "Merde." Tokyo? Still standing.
The entries aren't equally strong, of course, but each comes from a sharp outsider's perspective, approaching Tokyo as a strange, mysterious organism that infects the populace.
This isn't an art house crowd pleaser along the lines of the 2006 "Paris, je t'aime," a freewheeling mixed bag of shorts made by the likes of Olivier Assayas, Wes Craven and Alfonso Cuarón. Tokyo! demands more patience, patience that it sometimes doesn't deserve.
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
Both in its parts and in the sum of them Tokyo! is playfully and sometimes disorientingly apocalyptic.
Carax, who hadn't made a movie since "Pola X" in 1999 comes off best.
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