Tokyo Sonata (2008) Time for a thread about this new Kiyoshi Kurosawa drama, now we actually have some kind of details to post about it gwyddon first mentioned this movie in his post here, and last night the ever-indispensable Pymmik posted this to the Koji Yakusho Yahoogroup: Well, well, well - very interesting CHARISMA SPOILER---> Sounds a bit like the opening premise of Charisma to me, if I recall correctly Worth looking out for, I'm sure, when it comes http://imdb.com/title/tt0938341/ http://jasongray.blogspot.com/2007/12/podcast-set-visit-to-kiyoshi-kurosawas.html - some lucky sod got a visit to the movie set *jealous* :lol: http://www.indiewire.com/buzz/070304.html http://www.kfccinema.com/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1197061713&archive=
Thanks for the info. Kiyoshi is my second favorite Japanese director (behind Shinya Tsukamoto), but I never really liked his non-horror films that much (Bright Future or Doppelganger). I'll definitely look forward to seeing this though.
It's at Cannes this week: http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/10802478/year/2008.html Some reviews: http://jasongray.blogspot.com/2008/05/tokyo-sonata-kiyoshi-kurosawas.html http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/tokyo-sonata.shtml (Tom Mes calling it Kurosawa's masterpiece in the process)
Yeah, but we all know Midnight Eye aren't very keen on genre-type works and prefer arthouse films, so I'm taking that Mes recommend with a large pinch of salt myself...
How is that? I'm not trying to brown-nose Midnight Eye but they, in general, and Mes, in particular, usually review horror and exploitation fairly favorably. Also, since they have gained a bit of ground in film criticism, they Japanese film a bit more prominence and legitimacy, something that has been lacking since the '70s. Mes is better than Mark Schilling at best, anyway.
Here's another review: "A quiet and subtle film Tokyo Sonata is unlikely to find much of an audience outside of the festival circuit simply because nobody out there will know how to sell a movie about an unemployed fifty (or so) year old man, which is a shame because this is an elegant, insightful piece of work that stands among the best films he has made throughout his career." Yeah, I admit this sounds like a good movie. Gotta keep an eye out for this.
*shrugs* It's a personal thing. I dislike the tone they employ, which for me falls somewhere between snooty condescension towards pure horror genre and dry academicism, and I've never made any secret of my outright dislike for anyone who looks down their nose at "lowly" genre fans.
Apparently Tokyo Sonata has won the Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard category in Cannes. http://www.cinematical.com/2008/05/24/live-from-cannes-tulpan-wins-un-certain-regard/ http://www.cinematical.com/2008/05/18/cannes-review-tokyo-sonata/ I'm so glad KK has won a prize and some well-deserved recognition
Excellent news! http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=67939 Very happy to see more and more Blu-ray releases of obscure movies.
I saw Tokyo Sonata last night as part of the San Francisco International Asian-American Film Festival. My initial impressions are favorable, it's a drama in which crisis within a family is used as a reflection on the national crisis of Japan losing its way in the world. I'll have a review in my blog sometime within a week if anyone is interested in checking back. By the way, for you UK folks, the DVD for this film is being released by Eureka via their Masters of Cinema series: http://eurekavideo.co.uk/moc/images/covers/large/081-tokyo-sonata-mockup-72dpi-dvd-cover.jpg
Here's the press release for the Eureka DVD, which I just literally received about 10 seconds ago: Yippee! Can't wait to get my grubby paws on this :dance:
Here's the press release for the Eureka DVD, which I just literally received about 10 seconds ago: Yippee! Can't wait to get my grubby paws on this :dance:
