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Millennium Actress
EMAILPRINTDreamWorks Distribution LLC

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 15 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 6 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
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)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Tokyo Godfathers
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
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...
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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Millennium Actress fascinatingly goes where films have not often gone before.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle G. Allen Johnson
There isn't a film filled with richer, more colorfully imaginative images currently playing in theaters.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Past and present, reality and fiction blend seamlessly into each other in Satoshi Kon's dream-like animated drama.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Millennium Actress has more layers to it than the proverbial onion, but Kons sure hand keeps things moving right along and into the next historical period.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
