Tokyo.sora

Ishikawa Hiroshi first struck a cord with Japanese audiences with his eye-catching and haunting TV commercials (CM) for such Japanese products as Kirin Lemon. "Tokyo.Sora" is his first foray into theatrical film making and it is like his commercials, quite inventive if not mesmerizing. Those expecting an atypical, Japanese teen melodrama, tear-jerker or slice-of-life travelogue of Tokyo may either be pleasantly surprised or immensely frustrated by Ishikawa's non-conventional and almost subdued style of storytelling. "Tokyo.sora" plays almost like a documentary as it follows the lives of six very "ordinary" Tokyo gals as they each attempt to live their lives in the heart of Tokyo. Their lives are mundane, uneventful and even at times boring but somehow Ishikawa manages to get us interested enough in their individual stories. While we never get to know their names, they represent a unique and interesting cross-section of the young Japanese population – (Girl 1) A Taiwanese student living in Japan trying to master the Japanese language while working part-time as an Art Class model. (Girl 2) A bespectacled 25 year old girl making a living handing out complimentary tissue packets around the streets of Tokyo (Girl 3) A young college student who is just starting to begin a relationship with a fellow classmate, while also trying to come to terms with certain `body image' issues (Girl 4) A young waitress at a coffee shop who is in a one-sided love relationship with her handsome boss (Girl 5) A young aspiring hairdresser who moonlights as a Drinking Companion at a local bar and (Girl 6) a girl in her late 20s who also works as a Drinking Companion but aspires to be novel writer. While these girls never actually meet or become close friends, they cross paths and pass each other along the way, as they each try to battle loneliness under a constant blue/gray Tokyo skyline. Audiences who enjoyed Sofia Coppola's equally subdued `Lost In Translation' may find this film a good companion piece as it covers similar issues of finding one's identity and self. While not as interesting as the enjoyable `Bounce No Ko-Gals' or as outrageous as `Suicide Club', `Tokyo.Sora' is a fascinating (if not somewhat mundane) look at the lives of ordinary girls in Tokyo trying to make a living and deal with issues that are surprisingly universal no matter what city you live in.

This is a slow moving atmospheric film about love and relationships but not the conflicts that arise from them. The film is very subtle in its approach. At times it seems you're watching video wallpaper. The reason I am recommending it is that it has a beauty that I don't see often. The scenes are staged for maximum effect of the young ladies Yuki and Yoko and I found myself trying to anticipate their next movements (if indeed there were any). For anyone who wants a story that is obvious, this is not your film. The film appears to me to be about loneliness. That it is told so subtly is a testament to the director and its main two stars. There are a few moments where the movie particularly excels, such as the scene when Yuki and Yoko go running after drinking beer. Also, although its not a major part of this film, the mostly spare musical score is very effective. The city of Tokyo has a special resonance in parts of this film. What started as a film about young ladies trying to make their way became a film which got you to care about them. So, if you like art films this is particularly good.

In the decade of the 2000s, a lot of movies we suffering of the over the top amateurish experiment fever, very few movies manage to get away with it and felt exiting but most of them ended up in the trash can of time waster. Tokyo.Sora is no exception, it's over 2 hours of nothingness, despite great acting, the movie or video is low with director skill and DV camera quality, it feels like a student would have done this and didn't care what he filmed as long as he could make it over two hours plan.

The plot is about six women who live their daily lives in Tokyo, trying to make their dreams come true, but every day is the, the girl who dream of being a painter is going to painting school and has a love interest, a Chinese girl study Japanese and work as a painter model, a business woman is trying start on her own with her boyfriend, and library girl who wants to become an actress and make several failed audition, and two escorts who becomes friends, and that's it.

The plot I just told you sounds interesting, but how the movie is executed is not, it's filmed with a home video camera, one spot, and most of the time, the director film a wall for 5 minutes, yes just a wall for 5 minutes then cut to next scene, and when one scene ends it keep rolling for 5 minutes, it's like the director fell asleep on his own movie, and the sound is obviously filmed live, and poorly edited, because you can hear a bus driving while the scene is indoor, and sometimes you don't hear the dialogs at all, the only one good scene and that's when the two escorts show their daily life but that one is almost end of the movie and the movie is over two hours long.

I can't complain on the acting though, all girls are great and it's amazing that the famous swimsuit model Honjo Manami is in this movie and play an unattractive actress wannabe and that shows what a great actress she is, but she can't help the movie, it was made to literary waste time and I see no point watching it, if I wanna watch daily life people then I prefer a documentary.

Tokyo Sora, is a very slow movie, that has some pacing problems with the characters, but putting all that aside, and just watching this movie with patience, this movie can be quite compelling and rewarding to the viewers.

Basically there really is no story, it's a character driven movie. There are six woman who are trying to make a living in the City of Tokyo, all six woman get into realistic situations, and interact with the people they know just to make their lives better. We have girl 1, a student who is learning the Japanese language, and is a part time art class model. Girl 2 is a girl who gives out free tissue samples, and is just trying to make a normal living in her apartment. Girl 3 is an art student, who has gotten a boyfriend for the first time, and is struggling in the world of a girl image. Girl 4 is waitress in a coffee shop who enjoys interacting with her boss I'm guessing, and a small little affection for each other is implied. Girl 5 is a late twenties woman, who works at a lingerie bar, but she has a dream of becoming a writer, and is ambitious to make a story that will impress an editor she met during a phone convo about her previous story she wrote. Girl 6 is lonely and very depressed girl who is a hairdresser, and also works at the lingerie bar.

The plot may sound extremely boring, but the director has someway for you to be interested in the interaction and situations these people experience, not only that, you can be compelled by these interaction's, and grow close to the characters.The plot in my opinion is just plain old normal. This movie is like taking videotapes of woman in Tokyo without them knowing, that is how realistic this movie looked, and this kind of style made this movie quite unique. The best thing about this movie was the character interaction, the relationships that were developed for some short time, and broke after a short time, which made you feel like you are actually witnessing all of this. The plot has thing, that can suck you right into the movie, and actually witness all these events taking place close up.

Characters in this movie was the biggest problem. Although they were are all very likable, the pacing for their stories were extremely uneven, which stopped you from learning much about some of them. Girl 6 we never got to know much about her reason of depression, girl 1 and 2 had a lot of screen time in the beginning, but after the halfway mark of this film,they can be extremely forgettable, they dedicated most of the screen time to girl 5, the rewarding thing about that, is that she was a character that you can grow extremely attached to from her happy relationship with the editor, to the trigger of depression for her. girl 3 and 4, they did not even feel like the main woman out of the 6 woman, cause they were so shallow, and they were given the least screen time, especially girl 4. The fact is that the outrageous uneven pacing with the characters, was the small downfall for the movie, but still physically, and mentally the girls are quite likable, even though they did not get much screen time, which is quite amazing I think.

The most amazing thing about this movie was the lack of duologue, I think for me out of every single movie I have seen in my entire life, this movie had the least duologue, lack of duologue made this movie even more realistic. Relationship for these woman did not develop because of some big obstacle they had to go through like other movies portray, but they developed like how you would see in your everyday lives, e.g some guy/girl trying to draw your attention by having similar interests, or another one is just becoming boyfriend, and girlfriend *just like that* with nothing developing for that event. The other amazing thing about this movie was that the movie hardly had background music, out of what I can remember only like 2-3 scenes had music playing.

This movie is extremely slow, but it has all the right reasons to be. Refreshing movie this is, I enjoyed watching this film, even if it was slow, cause at points the director wins you over somehow, but this movie was extremely fresh, and not like your everyday movies you watch, this movie went for realism, and it hit the mark, and made it somewhat compelling and joyful. My only warning is that this movie is only for people that have patience in watching movies, and just want's to go with the flow of the movie, not for people, who are looking for twists, and fast turning points.

My score 4/5 ****