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Paprika
Sony Pictures Classics


7.9

based on 26 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 24 votes
Read user comments
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MPAA RATING: R for violent and sexual images

Starring Megumi Hayashibara, Tôru Furuya, Kôichi Yamadera, Katsunosuke Hori, Toru Emori, Akio Ôtsuka, Hideyuki Tanaka, and Satomi Koorogi

Dr. Atsuko Chiba is a genius scientist by day, and a kick-ass dream warrior named Paprika by night. In this psychedelic sci-fi adventure anime, it will take the skills of both women to save the world. (Sony Pictures Classics)

GENRE(S):	Animation \| Foreign \| Horror \| Mystery \| Sci-fi
WRITTEN BY:	Seishi Minakami Satoshi Kon Yasutaka Tsutsui (novel)
DIRECTED BY:	Satoshi Kon
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: November 27, 2007 Theatrical: May 25, 2007
RUNNING TIME:	90 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Japan
LANGUAGE(S):	Japanese (with English subitles)

Nominated, Golden Lion, 2006 Venice Film Festival

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 Andrea Gronvall

The intersections between sleep and waking, memory, cinema, and the Internet lead to a spectacular battle of titans who spring from the mind's darkest recesses.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Gianni Truzzi

Despite the jumble, Kon's eye-popping, surreal mastery of the Japanese dream is awakening.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Fantasy leaks into reality.

Los Angeles Times John Anderson

Kon's best work yet.

Newsweek David Ansen

It happens to be one of the most wildly (and disturbingly) inventive animated films I've seen.

The New Yorker David Denby

The brilliant Paprika, directed by Satoshi Kon--a masterly example of Japanese anime, intended for adults--is partly hand drawn, and features multiple areas of visual activity layered at different distances from the picture plane.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

A gorgeous riot of future-shock ideas and brightly animated imagery, the doors of perception never close.

Premiere Aaron Hillis

Paprika ain't no kiddie 'toon, even if its thumpin' techno-pop and bubble-gum thrills have the same splashy palette as an episode of "Pokémon" or "Dragon Ball Z."

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Someone walking cold into a movie theater showing Paprika might be excused for thinking the screen was having a Technicolor seizure. Fans of Japanese anime and filmmaker Satoshi Kon will simply feel dazzlingly at home.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Whatever it is you're looking for - comedy, horror, parades of singing frogs and dancing kitchen appliances - you'll find it in Satoshi Kon's anime adventure, a jaw-dropping feat of imagination.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

While I liked the film's aesthetics and its futurist imaginings, its most important attraction is how it engages. Some movies massage you; others tickle you. This one jacks you into cyberspace, involving you psychically and physically.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

A film so joyfully insane that it feels like Kon is overcompensating.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Satoshi Kon, whose previous film was the remarkable "Tokyo Godfathers," uses the complex plot as a pretext for joyous psychedelia.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Schizophrenia never looked so good or so mesmerizing as it does here, and Paprika, while certainly not suitable for kids, manages to capture the childlike, helter-skelter chaos and curiosity of the human mind better than any other animated film.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Paprika is a creatively dizzying and visually dazzling allegory about alternative realities.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

It's not a film for children, and it's not even something children would like. It's challenging and disturbing and uncanny in the ways it captures the nature of dreams -- their odd logic, mutability and capacity to hint at deepest terrors.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

We've gotten perhaps too used to the computerized wizardry of our own cartoon features; Kon, like Miyazaki shows us some older ways that can still transfix us.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Fiercely provocative, Paprika shames Hollywood’s use of animation as a kiddie pacifier.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

It's a great place to visit, even if you wouldn't want to live there.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

I can't claim to have followed the story line of Paprika any better than I did "Pirates of the Caribbean," but this mind-blowing, adult animated adventure from Japan is half the length and maybe five times as much fun.

Variety Leslie Felperin

With its brainy scientist heroine, and surreal, super-kitsch imagery, above-average Japanese anime sci-fi pic Paprika has a better chance than most Nipponese toons of breaking out of the specialty ghetto by appealing to femme auds as well as the genre's core constituency of fanboys.

Village Voice Rob Nelson

Paprika, based on a serialized novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui, isn't a movie that's meant to be understood so much as simply experienced--or maybe dreamed.

The Hollywood Reporter Richard James Havis

It is an intelligently written piece that only falters during the finale.

Slate Dana Stevens

One thing is for sure: The über-dream is both gorgeously animated, in Kon's shimmering, hyperreal style, and sickeningly scary.

LA Weekly Staff (Not credited)

This loopy anime from director Satoshi Kon ("Millennium Actress") isn't a movie that's meant to be understood so much as simply experienced -- or maybe dreamed.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

It's best appreciated by assuming something of a dream state ourselves and enjoying the giddy flow.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.9 (out of 10) based on 24 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

T M. gave it a10:
Absolutely amazing. best film on dreams I have ever seen, and one of the best films of the decade. need to see it again to delve further into the dream.

[Anonymous] gave it a10:
Inspiring, memorable and downright hilarious. It's a pretty polarizing film - some like it, some don't - but it's worth your money any way you look at it.

Troy K. gave it a7:
Truly in a class of his own. Great flick!

konceptz gave it a10:
The truth of this film, although a nightmare to some and a dream to others, is a reality which we can no longer ignore.

256kbps gave it a10:
Absolutely incredible. I will have to see it many more times to fully appreciate all the levels of visual and philosophical interaction that was going on throughout the entire movie. Seeing the parade of inanimate objects on its own is worth the cost of admittance.

moo gave it a6:
The animation was suberb as in any of Kon's movies, but the story and the characters are kind of dull after all. Not to mention the soundtrack got onto my nerves. Very fascinating and imaginative dreamscapes with lots of color and weird figures is what kept this movie above average for me. I really liked "Tokyo Godfathers" with its heart-warming story and lovely protagonists. In the end "Paprika" is just a weird dream. Not a bad one, not a such a good one either. But a better one!

Andrew K. gave it a7:
I don't normally like anime, and I didn't really think Tokyo Godfathers was all that great, but I really loved this film. I love anything that has to do with dreams, and this had plenty of surreal dream imagery to keep me interested. Little has been said in the reviews about the characters themselves. Paprika herself is adorable and her scientist counterpart, Atsuko, is interesting in that she refuses to let her playful side out of her when she is herself. The odd interaction between Atsuko and Paprika makes it hard to know where one begins and the other ends. The old man that she works for is good for a laugh (sorry I can't remember names...been a week or two). The cop character is interesting and a good hero figure that we believe in. The fat scientist who creates the device used to enter people's dreams is funny and endearing, but if there were any flaw with the movie, I'd have to say that it was in not establishing enough of a connection between him and Atsuko in the beginning. It would make more sense for what comes at the end. The villains in the film are wonderfully evil. The mastermind is a megalomaniac and his accomplice is demented in just the right, creepy ways. There were shades of Silence of the Lambs in the scene where he has Atsuko pinned down on the table (or maybe it was just the butterfly imagery that made me think of it). The dreams are so brilliantly insane as well as creepy. I wouldn't even say that it's that difficult to understand as almost everyone else is saying. There were only one or two moments where I was unsure what was going on, and I was willing to forgive that because it added to the surreal nature of the film. This was a great movie. Don't discount it because it's anime, if you're the type, like me, who often does that. One of the best films this year!

Paprika Sony Pictures Classics

Paprika
Sony Pictures Classics