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Dolls

EMAILPRINTPalm Pictures

Dolls reviews
71
9.0 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 16 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 5 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Drama  |  Foreign  |  Romance

Written by: Takeshi Kitano

Directed by: Takeshi Kitano

Release Date:
Theatrical: December 10, 2004
DVD: March 8, 2005

Running Time: 114 minutes, Color

Origin: Japan

Language(s): Japanese (with English subtitles)

Summary

RATING: Not Rated

Starring Miho Kanno, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Tatsuya Mihashi, Chieko Matsubara, Kyôko Fukada, Tsutomu Takeshige, Nao Omori, and Yuuko Daike

Three contemporary stories inspired by the everlasting emotions expressed by the precious dolls of Bunraku theater. Three stories delicately intertwined by the beauty of sadness. Three stories of undying love. (Palm Pictures)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The overall mood is stately and melancholy, the selective use of color is ravishing, and some of the natural views are breathtaking.

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83

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

As an exception to the norm, Kitano doesn't appear this time, confining himself merely to writing, directing, and editing.

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80

Film Threat Darrin Keene

The cinematography is stunning, particularly where Matsumoto and Sawoko walk through the four seasons of life.

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80

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Kitano's gentle side reigns in Dolls, a gorgeous meditation on love and devotion, but the film's hypnotic tone and beautifully formalized color scheme makes it unlike anything he's done to date.

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75

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A work both rigorously stylized and deeply personal. Devotees of Kitano and Japanese cinema will admire Dolls.

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75

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Dolls isn't a film for everybody, especially the impatient, but Kitano does succeed, I think, in drawing us into his tempo and his world, and slowing us down into the sadness of his characters.

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75

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Dolls is an art film, and a languid, inexplicably haunting one at that.

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75

San Francisco Chronicle G. Allen Johnson

Colorful and sweeping.

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75

New York Post V.A. Musetto

Lush and poetic, Dolls proves once again that Kitano is one of the world's most original filmmakers.

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70

The New York Times Stephen Holden

With some staggeringly beautiful photography of cherry blossoms and scarlet autumn leaves, Dolls is so enthralled with its own cinematography that it can't bear to edit itself, and during the autumn and winter segments of the bound beggars' journey, it almost reaches a standstill.

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70

Variety David Rooney

Despite an excessively meandering final act, the drama's three intertwined stories have a cumulative impact, their affecting sadness matched by meticulously composed visual poetry.

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70

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

The movie's pace is appropriate to its mood, which is crisp, melancholy and gently cruel.

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63

New York Daily News Robert Dominguez

Rife with beautiful imagery and loads of symbolism, though none of the stories is particularly compelling on its own.

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60

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Whether this measured exercise in romantic melancholy moves you to tears or bores you to them is probably a matter of personal susceptibility to the sting of bitter regret for love lost.

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50

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Dolls risks the bank on symbology as gaudy as teen anime and as heavy as a stone temple.

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40

The Hollywood Reporter Richard James Havis

Dolls soon becomes overloaded with symbolism, and consequently suffocates the audience.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

marie gave it a7:
Nice pictures, but a bit too smart for me.

procphecy gave it a 10:
The best movie to go see during the x-mas holiday.

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