TOKYO GODFATHERS Rating: (out of 5 stars) Director: Satoshi Kon Producer: Writers: Keiko Nobumoto, Satoshi Kon Director of Photography: Katsutoshi Sugai Visit the IMDB page for full cast and crew

Comment on the message boards.

Review by: Warren Curry
1/12/04

There is a cult of people who worship at the altar of Asian cinema. I am not one of these people. Tokyo Godfathers is an animated film from Japan, directed by Satoshi Kon, who has received quite a bit of praise for his first two films, Perfect Blue and Millennium Actress. Kon's uniqueness in the anime genre is attributable to the fact that the director actually pays attention to such things as story and character development, which makes Tokyo Godfathers considerably easier to sit through than most films of this ilk. Tokyo Godfathers has a tangible dramatic pulse, but staggers in a few too many spots because of its predilection for utilizing gimmicky narrative devices.

It's Christmas in Tokyo, and three homeless friends -- Gin, an old alcoholic man, Hana, a male transvestite, and Miyuki, a young female runaway - unsuspectingly find a baby while digging through a pile of trash for Christmas presents. Hana, who has always dreamed of being a mother, is adamant to keep the baby, but her cohorts insist that the best thing to do is return the newborn to its parents. The trio of friends name the child Kiyoko and set off to find the baby's home.

The journey turns into an adventure of personal discovery, and several obstacles stand in the way of Gin, Hana and Miyuki. In one strangely comic moment, they happen across a member of an organized crime family, who is trapped beneath his vehicle. The wandering trio lends a helping hand to the man, then accompany him to his daughter's wedding, and eventually become caught in the midst of a mob war. Later, a group of teenagers attack and pummel Gin mercilessly. They also must deal with an impostor who claims to be Kiyoko's mother.

Gin, Hana and Miyuki are also haunted by their pasts, and each has an encounter with a long lost family member. They fight amongst themselves, with all going their separate ways at one point, but a shared commitment to make sure that Kiyoko's parents are found ultimately serves as a unifying bond.

The homeless are not the usual protagonists typically found in Japanese anime films (or any film for that matter). Director Kon invests a lot of warmth and caring in this movie, and the story unfolds with a very traditionally plotted structure, which is actually unique for this genre. But the drama is inconsistent due to the very hammy manner in which certain events unfold. The way the backstories are revealed, using brief flashbacks, is just too obvious, but its design appears aware of that fact. Kon is reticent to completely commit to a dramatic tone and that's what causes the bumps in the narrative road.

Since I'm an anime neophyte, all of the character design and animation in these films looks quite alike to me. I'm sure fans of this fare can easily point out the differences, but Tokyo Godfathers, visually, doesn't appear to offer up much in the way of originality. But whereas the story is the main point of emphasis here, it's nice not to be distracted by flamboyant visuals.

Tokyo Godfathers is 1000x better than the last anime film I saw (the mind numbingly confusing and atrocious Cowboy Bebop), and it's refreshing to see that some filmmakers working in this genre are fond of telling very human stories. Although this effort contains its fair share of problems, it's obvious that Kon is a director who can take this genre in intriguing new directions.

(An IDP Distribution release. Opens in New York and Los Angeles on January 16, 2004. Expands to more cities at later dates.)