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Millennium Actress

EMAILPRINTDreamWorks Distribution LLC

Millennium Actress reviews
70
9.0 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 15 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 6 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Animation  |  Drama  |  Foreign  |  Romance

Written by: Satoshi Kon
Sadayuki Murai

Directed by: Satoshi Kon

Release Date:
Theatrical: September 12, 2003
DVD: October 28, 2003

Running Time: 87 minutes, Color

Origin: Japan

Language(s): Japanese (with English subtitles)

Summary

RATING: PG for thematic elements, violence and brief mild language

Starring Miyoko Shôji, Mami Koyama, Fumiko Orikasa, Shouzou Iizuka, Masaya Onosaka, Shouko Tsuda, Masatane Tsukayama, and Kôichi Yamadera

In this unique epic adventure, the lines between the past and the present, and truth and fiction, are blurred when a documentary filmmaker fulfills his quest to find the legendary actress Chiyoko Fujiwara, and learn why she mysteriously vanished at the height of her brilliant career. (Go Fish 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 Tribune Kevin M. Williams

Fabulous for many reasons. Most important, this movie is Chiyoko's story, not an anime adventure. It's animated, but it's human and will touch the soul of anyone who has loved deeply.

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91

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Deftly weaves history, film and memory into an imaginative meditation on why the movies become a part of our lives.

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80

LA Weekly David Chute

Satoshi innovates not by pushing off into more extreme realms of adolescent fantasy, but by using all the resources of animation to tell complex dramatic stories, resources that in his hands seem almost limitless.

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80

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Millennium Actress fascinatingly goes where films have not often gone before.

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80

The New York Times Dana Stevens

To watch Millennium Actress is to witness one cinematic medium celebrating another, an expression of movie love that is wonderfully eccentric and deeply affecting.

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75

New York Post Megan Lehmann

It manages to be both kinetic and dream-like at the same time -- "Run Lola Run" by way of David Lynch.

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75

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The movie's narrative can be taxingly ornate, but there's something beautiful about its metaphorical conflation of politics and glamour, the real and the fictional.

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75

San Francisco Chronicle G. Allen Johnson

There isn't a film filled with richer, more colorfully imaginative images currently playing in theaters.

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75

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Although we never feel any true connection to the enigmatic actress, there's no denying the inventiveness of Kon's homage to the possibilities of cinema.

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70

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Past and present, reality and fiction blend seamlessly into each other in Satoshi Kon's dream-like animated drama.

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70

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

Animated in much the same style as "Perfect Blue," but with greater depth and a more elaborate sense of playfulness, Millennium Actress is a visual feast, but also a mental gymnastics routine.

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67

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Millennium Actress has more layers to it than the proverbial onion, but Kon’s sure hand keeps things moving right along and into the next historical period.

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63

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole

Millennium Actress is a quest for beauty and truth that is as wonderful to look at as it is gruelling to contemplate.

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50

Variety Derek Elley

Contains some brilliant invention between duller stretches.

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40

Village Voice Ben Kenigsberg

Flashbacks integrate with scenes from her films, and it becomes difficult to discern between the two -- cinema is equated with memory. Unfortunately, the trippy disorientation ultimately devolves into outright confusion.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 6 User Votes

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

Riren gave it a9:
Millennium Actress is lost on all cultures outside of Japan's. It's deep and meaningful tapestry of Asian film history is beautiful, but also outside the frame of reference for all but the most informed foreign movie goers. That said, its sentimentality and original execution are inspiring. There may be no tribute to American film that rivals what this does for its homeland. And despite its language barrier, despite the culture barrier, despite it being animated, it will touch you. It's fairly easy to tell when the "real world" and "film world" change off, except when it's intentional. I can't imagine anyone who couldn't understand that part of the movie, and hope to goodness I never become such a person. This one goes down as not just one of the greatest animated drama, not just one of the greatest anime, but truly as a great film.

Chad S. gave it an 8:
Not since "The Purple Rose of Cairo" has "movie love" been explicated with such dazzling results. "Millennium Actress" is a busy film, sometimes so excessively, it leads to discomfort because it doesn't adhere to any rules. A key, the actress' memento of an unrequited love, appears in her own life, and in her work. Distinguishing the two can be taxing, if you let it. There's a little of "Mullholland Drive" here, and arguably, "Millennium Actress" might be the first interesting David Lynch knockoff, with emotional resonance to boot. Not so much towards the reclusive actress' angst, but the projection of our own movie star crushes upon the documentarian, who inserts himself in the old films, usurping a role and stealing lines. For an American audience raised on contemporary Disney(who's idea of innovation is "Lilo and Stitch") and cheap TV animation slaughterhouses like Filmation and Hanna-Barbera, the storytelling ambition of this "cartoon" astonishes.

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