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Tokyo Sonata

Tôkyô sonata

Japan

2008

119 Min
  • Currently 3.9/5 Stars.
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DIR Kiyoshi Kurosawa

PROD Yukie Kito

SCR Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Max Mannix, Sachiko Tanaka

DP Akiko Ashizawa

CAST Haruka Igawa, Inowaki Kai, Teruyuki Kagawa, Kyôko Koizumi, Yû Koyanagi

ED Koichi Takahashi

Synopsis

A typical household secretly teeters on the verge of collapse in this dark comedy from director Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Businessman Ryuhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa) is the principal breadwinner of a seemingly happy family in Tokyo, with Ryuhei looking after his teenage sons Takashi (Yu Koyanagi) and Kenji (Kai Inowaki) with his wife Megumi (Kyoko Koizumi). But what Megumi and her children don’t know is that Ryuhei is out of a job; his position was outsourced to a company in China, and he’s too ashamed to tell his family the truth. Ryuhei leaves home every morning as if he’s going to the office, but instead visits employment centers in hopes of landing a new job and eating lunch at a kitchen for the indigent. One day, while waiting for free porridge, Ryuhei meets an old friend who is in a similar predicament, Kurosu (Kanji Tsuda); Kurosu ends up bringing Ryuhei home for dinner so they can discuss their fictive day at work and maintain their subterfuge. Megumi, who is not as well adjusted as she appears, one day spots her husband in a soup line while running errands, and discovers the truth about his employment status, though she doesn’t dare confront him. And as Takashi and Kenji begin drifting away from their emotionally distant parents, Kenji starts to suspect things are not as they should be, and begins spending his lunch money on music lessons in hopes of starting a career as a pianist. Tokyo Sonata was an official entry at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.

(From http://www.allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=1:452731)

Wall

Displaying 4 of 10 wall posts.
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Ghost Horses

10Jan10

Whats the purpose of art? All I know is this movie made me feel good.  
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chrisperez

31Dec09

You watch this and wonder...really? do the Japanese permit these things in their culture? and then you think: yes, and i see some that too in mine. Very good film, and a very beautiful ending.   
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sunshineandclouds

5Dec09

Wow! Wow! Wow! It's hard to find words to describe how great this movie is. BEST final scene of any movie ever made.  
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Edwin N

11Oct09

A scalping family study, an excellent psychological study of incommunicability, melancholy and deception.Kurosawa paints family relationships, daily routines, banal quotidien and interior pain like no one did,really.Tokyo Sonata is a slow exploration of our lives, a mind-blowing film of intense bravura.I am stunned.This is the greatest film I have seen all year, saw it at the BIFF.  

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Articles

Our roundup of essays and articles on this film.
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Sundance. "The Company Men"

By David Hudson on January 24, 2010
"Essentially a horror film for the white-collar workers over 50, The Company Men follows three suits (Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper) trying to come to terms with widespread downsizing
read article
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勝手にしやがれ: Japanese Film & Media on Its Own Terms, #1: Out of Sight

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勝手にしやがれ (KATTE NI SHIYAGARE) In François Truffaut’s fourth episode of the Antoine Doinel saga, Bed and Board (1970), Antoine (Jean-Pierre Léaud) embarks on an affair with a Japanese woman, Kyoko (Hiroko
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Reviews

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Untitled

By Law on October 11, 2009

Tokyo Sonata is a masterpiece, an excellent exploration of alienation and the breakdown of the domestic unit amidst a contemporary and (ironically) increasingly globalised society.

Although…  read review

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Tokyo Sonata (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2008)

6 posts by 5 people about 1 month ago