Millennium Actress [Blu-ray]

A movie that in my youth defined my anime preferences. It’s passionite, incredibly well animated, and a complete love story for Japanese classic cinema. All tied together in a over the top love story about a girl seeking her one lost love. Now the this is all good, honestly I still cry at the end... but the main female character has literally no other personality other then being in love. Yes, her performance and characterization is lovely and truly captures this aspect of her... but that’s all she is. And after watching this film as an adult I have a much harder time accepting this flaw in the film. That said if you haven’t seen it, see it. It’s one of those defined anime for generations films, like akira, ghost in the Shell, perfect blue, etc. also doesn’t help that it has some of the best transitions in an animated film ever.

Seriously, one of my all time favorite films. Roughly 18 years ago i first watch this film after renting it from my local library at the tender age of 13, the film brought me to tears, still does, and is a defining film that made me love anime as much as i do. Before then, animation was mostly stuff just for kids that I didn't think too deeply about, but this film showed me the raw potential of how animation can tell mature stories that doesn't talk down to its audience. I don't think very many 13 year olds would appreciate the film as much as I did at that time, it can be hard to follow at times. Personally, I think this film should be mandatory screening for anyone looking to into animation, as this film is a celebration of Japanese golden age cinema. I feel incredibly blessed to have seen this film in theaters in 2019, and i hope that one day i can make the pilgrimage to Kon's grave to give an offering. I greatly miss him.

All right, I admit it -- I saw this because the trailer presented it as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Which it isn't.But it isn't bad either. It is certainly well-drawn, and it tells a story.But what story? The story is that of an actress who, when younger, fell in love for a young man who vanished and who she searched for for a long time. Well done, but ultimately trivial.Oh, it /does/ do something interesting: a documentary film maker and his cameraman, while interviewing her, find themselves actually in the past she is describing.Of course, if you /like/ stories about separated lovers, this may be just what you were looking for!

Maybe the greatest movie actress of Japan - some considered her the Century Actress - born at the beginning at the twenties, starting to play in her teens, spanning a prodigious career over three decades of movie history, to vanish at her peak! She gave weak reasons (or no reasons at all) for her decision to leave the public life; her anonymity has been total ever since.Decades have passed, new generations of public came and little by little the great actress was forgotten. Of course, film critics are still mentioning her name when analyzing the movies of the forties and fifties; but they are talking at the past, as of a person who lived in a bygone era.Has everybody forgotten her? No, of course not, there will be always people passionate for her movies and fascinated by her personality: people dreaming to find her and to tell her their fascination.And here is the place where Sennen joyû (Millennium Actress) starts: a devoted fan succeeds to find her and she accepts to be interviewed by him. As they start talking, the past comes back in force and overwhelms the present. Scenes from all her movies, and what happened behind the scenes: she was playing the lead role, he was just a young assistant by then. The present is no more, their memories join in a unique flow. The old star and her fan live again the past, this time the meaning of those moments comes enriched: she is now aware of his presence on the plateau. Actually the past is not repeated: the force of their memories makes the past a continuous moment, time looses any significance. There is no more a succession of moments; there are only moments charged with emotional value, that remain forever.Kon Satoshi is an Animé film director,which was fortunate for this movie, as he kept this way total control over the story and was able to blur past and present, life on the plateau and life outside it; more than that, he was able this way to change completely the image style of each reenacted scene in accordance to the specific period; Jidaigeki movies from the twenties and early thirties, propaganda movies from the period of Manchurian occupation, dramas from late forties and fifties, Sci-Fi movies from the sixties on. What resulted was a fascinating history of Japanese cinema in its most significant moments!Is the feminine personage in the movie an allusion to Setusko Hara? The director did not confirm this suggestion. Nevertheless I would say yes, for many reasons, the main reason being that for me it is only Setsuko Hara who deserves to be named the Millennium Actress.

This animated movie was well done! A young girl becomes an actress, in pursuit of an artist whom had captured her heart during her schoolgirl days, hoping to find him again, despite not knowing his name. In the end, she never finds him in life, but in her final moments...well, I've given enough away.This movie also reveals that coincidences don't exist. People she encountered earlier in life reunite with her once or twice more, including the man interviewing her.The plotline is heartbreaking, as is the end, but overall, it is worth having your heart broken.

How does one capture the feelings of loss? More specifically, how does one capture the displacement and longing from a post-WW2 generation?Drawing from my own experience as a diasporic Korean American, I can tell you that this film really resonated with me. I can only imagine the stories my own grandmother told, both to herself and to the world she inhabited, in order to get by -- nay, succeed.It is the perpetual rewriting of the self that makes one resilient. It's how we can preserve our history yet move forward in the midst of tragedy.Satoshi Kon's style is incredibly atmospheric, and I like to watch his movies with that in mind. It's not so much the details that matter, but the feeling one gets while watching. His films are poetry in motion. I consider Millennial Actress to be one such film. Who is Chiyoko if not for her body of work? Can an artist separate themselves from their work? No. Artistic genius is not merely cerebral. It requires sacrificing one's self.

This movie is great, and if this was just a review for the movie I would give it five stars, however the UK version by Manga is not great.The US Region 1 release was only in Japanese with subtitles.The UK Region 2 release added an English dub, which made changes to when the characters were speaking, and what they were saying.Unfortunately there's only one set of subtitles which are for the English dub, so if you are watching in Japanese they are often out of sync with the audio, and it is obvious even without speaking Japanese that it is not a proper translation.For example, sometimes a character will just say one or two words, which will result in a long sentence of subtitles.See the attached image for a comparison of the same scene in both versions.If you are planning on watching in Japanese, I don't recommend the UK release.

Narratively and emotionally complex, Millennium Actress is nevertheless wonderfully accessible - a supreme example of how an artist can harness the qualities made available through film and animation and make something beautiful and meaningful out them.The story is simple and at the same time ambitious. A documentary filmmaker interviews the legendary Japanese actress Chiyoko Fujiwara. Now a 70 year old lady, Chiyoko's career has nevertheless spanned a millennium from period drama to science-fiction drama - but it's a single incident from her childhood that serves as a common thread through all her films and is also the key (literally as well as figuratively) inspiration that makes those performances so great.The animation then is fully put to the service of the story, Chiyoko's real-life and the documentary filmmakers all coming together into the landscape of her filmmaking career, the animation fluidly blending between them all, serving to add subtle emotional resonances - and sometimes not quite so subtle it must be admitted, but perfectly in tune nonetheless with the dramatic nature of the subject. In this way, Millennium Actress becomes a tribute not only to Japanese cinema, but to the nature of cinema as a whole, to the necessity of drama and the creation of fiction to make lives all the more vivid and meaningful. Magnificent.

`Millennium Actress' is an unusual film, with a unique storyline and with stunning animation. Chiyoko is an actress recounting her life story to a film crew and as she tells it, the films she has starred in and her real life become intertwined. The film crew go back in time with her as she acts in various films and searches for a lost love. This can get quite confusing at times, but once you get your head around the premise this makes for a unique and original style of film making. The animation is wonderful and is all the better for being hand drawn rather than the CGI pieces so often produced these days. The soundtrack compliments the film perfectly and the director deliberately requested this respected composer to work on this film for him and it is a stronger film when the soundtrack is coupled with the animation on screen. There is a `making of' feature as an extra on this disc which gives a deeper insight into the film and shows how the film developed. This is definitely a film that will get better with repeated viewings and whilst that first viewing may leave you mildly baffled, when you come to it again you will appreciate it for it's depth and beauty. Definitely a required DVD for your anime collection.Feel free to check out my blog which can be found on my profile page.

I will keep this short. Millennium Actress is one of the greatest animated movies of all time. It contains such inventive storytelling and engaging characters that will leave you emotional at the end of an unforgettable colourful and artistic ride. Do yourself a favour, and one that you will thank yourself for, and purchase this gem!

Wonderfully packaged in a colourful slipcase with a standard 14mm case.Take note: Single Disc not Double Disc!