Map of the Sounds of Tokyo

Isabel Coixet is a director I always liked since I saw My Life Without Me (2003)a few years back. Since then I tried to see the rest of her films.

This one just like Elegy (2008), seems to be Coixets attempt at becoming a more mainstream director, a bankable director able to do genre films.

However, Coixet seems very unfamiliar with genrefilmmaking and this film is very flawed, lacks focus and also brings almost nothing new the thriller genre.

Coxiet dramathriller about a Japanese girl who works at the fishmarket and also doubles as an assassin is basically your average story about a lonely assassin doing his/her job without emotion until one day....

Coixet tries to fill this tired, cliché ridden subgenre with filmpoetry, beautiful visuals, odd script and different approach but somewhere leaves the viewer with feeling that she knows almost nothing about this subgenre.

Experimenting with genres, mixing style and content in order to do something new and still stick to genretraditions is one hard thing to do.

Coixet doesn't handle this well, but there are good things to say about Rinko Kikuchis fishmarket girl, Sergi Lópezs wine merchant etc. Coixet has always been good directing actors and once again we get a film full of wonderful performances.

Had Coixet seen Le samouraï (1967), Xich lo/Cyclo (1995), Seom/The Isle (2000)etc we would have probably seen a different film altogether, instead of this flawed film.

However, see this film regardless of what the critics say, it has very nice performances, visuals etc.

And maybe next time Coixet will make a better genrefilm.

Well, what can I say? I am Spanish and I am a little familiarized with Japan and Japanese culture, my girlfriend is a Japanese girl living in Tokyo and I have visited the city. In my humble opinion, the portrait of Tokyo in this movie could be one of its limited virtues because at least is trying to show a different point of view focused not only on the typical tourist pictures but also on some not so glamorous places as small restaurants of ramen, a cemetery or a market for selling fish. Soundtrack is interesting and well chosen too, and nothing to complain about photography of the French Jean-Claude Larrieu. About Isabel Coixet, her work as a director is competent and even it has a "touch" more Japanese than Spanish (more concentrated on the silences or natural sounds than the dialogs or artificial noises, for example).

Until here the positive. Now the not so positive, always in my opinion. First, the story. A professional killer falling in love with his (her) victim and breaking his (her) own rules with bad consequences. How many times we have watched this kind of story in a movie? Too many times, I think. Second (and specially), the main actor. Sergi López. He is a respected actor here in Spain, but sorry, to choose him as the man able to light some fire in the cold heart of Ryu is one of the biggest mistakes I have seen in a casting for a movie. Sergi López, let's be honest, is not tall, not sophisticated, too old for Ryu and also scandalously fat for this kind of character. He is not charming, his face is the face of a farmer or a boxer and his voice is annoying in its vulgarity.

Again, sorry Sergi López, but nobody can believe that a very young Japanese girl can kill herself because of you, and also another young girl can fall in love with you until the extreme to risk her own life. Everything in only one month. Wow, are you some kind of Spanish chubby Bond with a special skill for melting Japanese girls? Isabel Coixet is a woman, and it's supposed a clever one. Does she believe the script? I don't believe it! And sorry sorry, even I can't believe López managing a wine shop for gourmet clients in Tokyo.

I knew nothing about this film or the director and thus had no expectations. I liked the film's title and the opening scene was very striking. I found the story to be a bit convoluted but was very drawn in by the main character, Ryu and her interactions with the two men in her life, one an enigmatic sound recordist and the other, the Spaniard who was the lover of the woman who killed herself and the man that Ryu is supposed to assassinate. She doesn't reveal herself to either man though both ask her to. So we also have no idea who she really is and why she does what she does. This mystery is part of the genre and as such, I accept it. It makes her all the more vulnerable as she begins to blossom through love's power.

A dramatic thriller that centers on a fish-market employee (Rinko Kikuchi) who doubles as a contract killer . She is a tough murderer who's hired by a powerful businessman as an assassin to kill a Spaniard (Sergi Lopez) owner of a winery in Tokyo whom he blames for the suicide of his daughter. Concerning the problematic existences of two particular roles played by Rinko Kikuchi and Sergi López , as their lives are intersected and both of them will change in unexpected consequences and unpredictable ways.

Isabel Coixet is in love with contemporary Japanese culture as evidenced by this outlandish film in which she reflects a lot on Japanese customs. The film gives a wide vision of today's Tokyo, the bustling streets, the peculiar hotels , the noisy markets , the popular karaokes and at the same time reflecting the solitude of the big metropolis. Isabel Coixet's infatuation with Japanese culture is well attested to the fact that she called her film production ¨Miss Wasabi Films¨. On a visit to a fish market while promoting "The Secret Life of Words" in the Land of the Rising Sun, the Barcelona filmmaker was inspired and decided to pay off her outstanding debt to Japan by shooting this sui generis film , which, although it is shot in Tokyo, maintains her intimate and special trademarks . In addition , she had two great actors : Rinko Kikuchi (nominated an Academy Award for Babel) as an assassin who's is hired by an avenger old man to kill and Sergi López as an unfortunate entrepreneur in Tokyo , both of whom monopolize practically all the footage of the film. As the picture relies heavily on the outlandish relationship between the two awesome protagonists : Rinko Kikuchi and Sergi López giving nice acting , including some strong erotic scenes among them . Despite being nominated for the Goya for best sound and Golden Palm at Cannes , and taking the technical prize in this Festival , the film failed at the box offic . The artistic and technician section were the facets praised by critics , who almost unanimously described it as cold and full of the usual cliches of Coixet's cinema.

The motion picture was leisurely , slowly directed by the Spanish Isabel Coixet , shooting in his ordinary feeling style , such as : A los que aman , Another me, The secret life of words, Things I never told you, Elisa and Mariela, Endless night, The bookshop, his biggest hits were Another me and Elegy with Ben Kingsley. . She is a good professional, a fine craftsman who has directed enjoyable and thoughful films . She often is the camera operator of her movies and founded her own production company, Miss Wasabi Films, in 2000 and was member of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival in 2009 . Her interesting filmography includes other feature films , such as : 'Cosas que nunca te dije' (Things I Never Told You) (1995), Elegy (2008), 'Mapa de los sonidos de Tokio' (Map of the Sounds of Tokyo) (2009), and the latest 'Ayer no termina nunca' (Yesterday Never Ends) (2013) besides documentary films, shorts and commercials , such as Proyecto tiempo, El espiritu de la pintura, Sea Aral, Marlango, Marea blanca, Spain in a day and a segment of Paris Je taime , among others. Map of the sounds of Tokyo rating 6/10. Well worth seeing , but only for Isabel Coixet followers .

Well, I went to see this movie yesterday and it was not what I was expecting. Does that means it was worse than I imagined? At all, it just means it was different.

Coixet portrays a different perspective of Tokyo where the city becomes just an excuse to show the loneliness of its two protagonists, who are literally lost in a decaying world and don't know how to get out of it. Ryu, the Japanese girl, is an assassin who gets paid for its job, and David is an Spanish living in Tokyo, who has lost his wife recently and feels his life has nothing but emptiness. Both found themselves alone and feel they need each other, but things are not easy and there are some scars that will never be healed.

This is NOT "Lost in Translation" and this is NOT about Tokyo but about human feelings. If you want to see a more realistic movie about Japanese culture and you think you might like this movie because you're a fan of everything related to it, you might be very disappointed. If you go there with no expectations and you just want to get immersed by its story, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

That being said, it contains very explicit sex scenes, so be careful little children. I don't think it's a movie any kid would like to see or appreciate, anyways.