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Review: Tokyo!

Dreamy tribute to a glittering metropolis
By SHAULA CLARK  |  April 8, 2009
3.5 3.5 Stars


Trailer of Toyko!

Together, idiosyncratic directors Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Leos Carax (The Lovers on the Bridge), and Bong Joon-ho (The Host) have crafted a bento box of delectable shorts. In a similar vein as with Paris, je t'aime, these non-Japanese filmmakers pay dreamy tribute to the glittering title metropolis.

In Gondry's "Interior Design," the girlfriend of a head-in-the-clouds filmmaker agonizes over her seeming uselessness until — in horrifying Kafka-esque fashion — she transforms into a spindly-legged ghost. Carax's absurd "Merde" chronicles the swath of Godzilla-like havoc a humanoid underground dweller wreaks upon the city while hilariously placid newscasters serve as narrators.

And Bong's "Shaking Tokyo" follows a hikikomori (shut-in) who breaks his 11-year streak of solitude to lock eyes with the pizza-delivery girl just before an earthquake strikes, changing both lives forever.

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  Topics: Reviews , Entertainment, Culture and Lifestyle, Food and Cooking,  More more >
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