Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

38 12 Rounds
48 17 Again
76 Adventureland
48 Angels & Demons
54 Battle for Terra
xx Bruno
80 Coraline
40 Dance Flick
83 Drag Me to Hell
72 Earth
45 Fast & Furious
61 Fighting
34 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
72 Gran Torino
73 Hangover, The
47 Hannah Montana: The Movie
51 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
54 Imagine That
41 Knowing
32 Land of the Lost
56 Monsters vs. Aliens
34 My Life in Ruins
51 My Sister's Keeper
46 Next Day Air
42 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
54 Observe and Report
25 Obsessed
48 Proposal, The
70 Public Enemies
61 Soloist, The
83 Star Trek
64 State of Play
55 Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
52 Terminator Salvation
35 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
77 Under the Sea 3D
88 Up
43 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
34 Year One

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Kamikaze Girls
Toho Company Ltd.


10.0

based on 14 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 7 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Kyôko Fukada, Anna Tsuchiya, Hiroyuki Miyasako, Ryoko Shinohara, Sadao Abe, Yoshinori Okada, Eiko Koike, and Shin Yazawa

Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of Kamikaze Girls, where two girls from utterly different fashion universes -- one a "Lolita," the other a "Yankee" -- cross paths and discover they have far more in common than at first sight. Kamikaze Girls is the latest pop-culture phenomenon to take Japan by storm. It began as a best-selling novel, by cult writer Novala Takemoto, whose empathy with social outsiders and decadent fashion sense has helped cultivate a devoted following among young women. Takemoto’s book was adapted into a comic and then into this film. (Viz Media)

GENRE(S):	Comedy \| Foreign
WRITTEN BY:	Tetsuya Nakashima Nobara Takemoto (comics)
DIRECTED BY:	Tetsuya Nakashima
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: January 10, 2006 Theatrical: September 9, 2005
RUNNING TIME:	102 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Japan
LANGUAGE(S):	Japanese (with English subtitles)

Original title "Shimotsuma Monogatari"

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...

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

A glorious blend of kitsch, grit, humor and uplift.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White

Fukada captures the stubborn individualism of a girl who embraces an unpopular lifestyle.

San Francisco Chronicle G. Allen Johnson

A silly, freewheeling, candy-colored lollapalooza, but also heartfelt.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

A charmingly loony tale of two young loners who form an unlikely bond, this droll Japanese import puts the predictable banality of most Hollywood teen flicks to shame.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

The yummy Japanese confection Kamikaze Girls deserves both a better title and an audience to go with it.

Entertainment Weekly Scott Brown

For the Western viewer, the cultural divide acts as a saccharine filter, and Kamikaze, a cult hit in Japan, becomes a mesmerizing lesson in otherness.

The Hollywood Reporter Andrew Sun

It's the kind of rollicking rebel-chick flick that should score well in venues that appreciate Quentin Tarantino films.

Variety Derek Elley

Wears out its welcome at 100 minutes, but could find an audience in the West as a latenight attraction at gay fests.

Film Threat Greg Bellavia

Fluff. The cinematic equivalent of too much cotton candy Tetsuya Nanashima's Kamikaze Girls is a hyperkinetic fun house ride that is about forty five minutes too long.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

What Kamikaze Girls doesn't have is a plot. As nice as the film looks, it soon grows tiresome -- though I could listen to the Johann Strauss II soundtrack forever.

TV Guide Ken Fox

But it's all done with such high style and whizzes along at such an exhausting pace that you probably won't have enough time to notice how little you care.

LA Weekly Chuck Wilson

For this viewer, the climactic scooter-gang rumble, heavy on plot twists and empowerment speeches, felt eternal, but for many, the happy silliness of the film's first half should carry the day.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Nakashima does his best to keep the flimsy enterprise afloat, mostly through whooshing camera movements and headlong dives into the grotesque extremes of Japanese kitsch. By the end, the effect is like eating a bellyache's worth of cotton candy.

Village Voice Matt Singer

If you value plausibility in movies, skip Kamikaze Girls; this is the sort of picture where getting run over by a truck gives a character gorgeous hair instead of a broken hip.

The average user rating for this movie is 10.0 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Cindy W. gave it a10:
Some critics just don't know a good movie when they see one. *shakes head* This movie is definately worth the watch!

Dennis L. gave it a10:
This movie is awesome! Some critics really have no idea how to review movies. The only people who shares their taste in movies are other movie critics!

Lindsey P. gave it a10:
I absolutly LOVED this movie and I know you will too!!!!

Clyde M. gave it a10:
Highly imaginative movie that pays gracious homage to Akria Kurosawa. It's so refreshing to experience a comedy about adolesence where the core humor comes from the strength of it's characters rather than clumsy attempts at crude bathroom jokes.

Andreas S. gave it a10:
This is a fascinating story about friendship, and about being outside "normal" culture. It gives a deep, but twisted look into how western culture is being absorbed by japaneese youth. This is NOT a documantary, this is a _FariyTale_ !!! Or more actually, an anime done by real actors. Thus, anything is possible, like crashing a scooter into a 3-wheel-truck while wearing a frilled rokoko dress, and not only walk away but actually ride off to fight a gang of biker-girls. Kamikaze girls is a must if you : a. have ever been bullied. b. have ever been an outsider. c. have ever had a true friend. d. have never had a true friend. e. like strange movies.

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page

Kamikaze Girls Toho Company Ltd.

Kamikaze Girls
Toho Company Ltd.