User reviews

Matsumoto (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and Sawako (Miho Kanno) are in deep love for each other. When the president of the company where Matsumoto works "selects" him to marry his daughter, Matsumoto's parents force him to accept the engagement. On the wedding day, Matsumoto is informed that Sawako has attempted to commit suicide and is slow and catatonic in a clinic. Matsumoto feels guilty, and takes Sawako out of the clinic; his decision affects their lives.

The old Yakuza boss Hiro (Tatsuya Mihashi) misses his girlfriend from thirty years ago that has promised to wait for him in a park while he would chase success. When Hiro visits the park, he sees her on the bench where they used to meet each other.

The pop-star Haruna Yamagushi (Kyôko Fukada) has an obsessive fan called Nukui (Tsutomu Takeshige) that stalks her. After a car accident, Nukui makes a decision to be close to his beloved idol.

"Dolls" is a sad and depressive movie based on the Japanese Puppet Theater Bunraku that tells three tales of guilt and eternal love. Each tragic love story is disclosed in a very slow pace and supported by stunning cinematography and excellent direction and performances. Takeshi Kitano has also a magnificent work promoting the culture of his country overseas. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Dolls"

In "Dolls" Takeshi Kitano moves away from his peculiar ultra violent cinema and gives us his most poetic and introspective movie. He resorts to the crossing-stories structure to tell us three tales about love and regret, about doing anything for the person you love (and I mean ANYTHING). Calm, almost without dialogs, full of symbols and metaphors, every shot looks like a postcard. The minimalistic soundtrack and the amazing photography (wich stands out every single colour on the screen) catch you as you follow the tragedies that hide in every one of the stories. Kitano expands his horizons and demonstrates that he's a hell of a talent no matter what the genre is.

PS: not recommended for the impatient.

My rate: 8/10

Kitano never fails to amaze me, and this movie is an exact epitome of the queer nature of his films. This movie is a collection of three love stories intersecting in the same time-line. The nature of love stories quite different from one-another and each one has a different essence to it.

First story is about a young couple, second story is about fan-idol love and the third one is about an unrequited love. All of these stories are somber and moving, and are not as mushy as typical love stories of Hollywood.

Cinematography in the film is awesome. There many long shots, which again is kind of Kitano's signature. Performance of the actors is quite good. Background score is beautiful and perfectly coherent with the scenes. The use of a puppet show in the movie is quite surreal and symbolic.

If you liked "Amorres Perros"; you will definitely like this movie.

A must watch for Kitano fans and those who admire subtle romance.

It takes a while for DOLLS to sink in. Not because of the complexity of the stories intertwined through the film but because of the sheer emotional impact virtually every scene carries with it.

I won't go into details about the three stories but I can say that, above all else, DOLLS is a lesson in love and anguish and it is by far Kitano's most powerful work, even more so than Hana-bi.

I'm baffled by the negative reviews I've seen of this film since it was first aired. I wonder if it might be a case of the viewer needing to understand the way Japanese often tend to act and feel when faced with difficult or unbearable situations and without that understanding you might question if people would ever really act the way they do in DOLLS. The answer is that often they really do.

I've considered Kitano a master film maker for a long time now. The man has only ever made one film that can't be considered good (the embarrassingly poor Getting Any?) and I consider Hana-bi in particular to be one of the finest films ever made. But Dolls almost functions at another level. I don't know how often I will watch it because it genuinely is emotionally draining but this is simply a brilliant piece of film making. The cinematography is exquisite. The acting is fantastic, especially Miho Kanno who gives such a tragic, beautiful performance while hardly saying a world throughout the film. And above all, the emotional bond forged with the viewer is beyond any I think I've ever seen on film.

Anyone who truly loves film should see Dolls. Actors should see Dolls if only to see how little you really need to give in order to portray real emotion. Directors should see Dolls and learn from a master. I genuinely believe Kitano will go down in history as a genius film maker. Dolls may well be his masterpiece.

Takeshi Kitano proudly presented Dolls in the last Venice festival, where it received bad critics and reviews from the so-called cinema intellectuals and movie critics (I'd rather called them dollar-seekers). A few months later it was premiered in the Sitges Cinema Fest, I didn't expected too much, I was too wrong.

Dolls is a great movie about true love and the meaning of life. It's perfectly directed, it's perfectly acted, it's... perfect? May be, of course it depends on you. The point to criticize the movie for most of the critics, is the point that I praise: the use of the symbols is 100% aesthetic, I even believe that the real love is not the subject of the movie, but aesthetics; and the greatest of everything is that using this strange way of filming he really emphasizes the story. The traditional filming would use symbol's as a way to directly emphasize the action, but this movie uses the symbols independently from the action and that gives strength to the overall story.

The aestheticism is very dangerous, because it can turn your movie into a sum of meaningless scenes attached with a very poor story, making it very boring. However Kitano-sensei (my biggest and greatest inspiration) manages to exploit aesthetics without loosing the plot.

This is not the first time that Kitano tries to explain a story with images, in Ano natsu ichiban shizukana umi (A scene at the sea) tried something similar, but didn't fully succeed.

In conclusion, it's a masterpiece you shouldn't forget. Kitano is one of the greatest directors nowadays and this movie proves it. Whether you are a hardcore Kitano fan or just enjoy films, watch it, you won't get disappointed.

10 out of 10

Praising or dismissing "Dolls" as pure aesthetics is just a banal way of labeling something that is beautiful which does not lend itself to immediate understanding. Just because any number of the meanings of the film don't jump out and bite the viewer is no reason to dismiss it as only aesthetically pleasing. We've got plenty of nature scenes and people starring blankly into space in cinema. They are not all masterpieces and "Dolls" would not be even half decent if that's all it was. If you feel the need to like this movie, then a better expression of this feeling is need than saying, "It's purdy."

As for myself I found there we several themes running through the film that merit investigation. First of all, the idea of hierarchy in relationships. In all the relationship there was a clearly dominant partner (yakuza, pop-star, groom) and a clear subservient partner (lady on bench, fan, discarder girlfriend). At the beginning of the film their supremacy is flaunted. They come and go as they please and treat the other member of the relationship flippantly and with little regard. They believe themselves to be the more powerful person in the relationship and think they are not as dependent on the so-called weaker member as the weaker member is on them. So times passes, some strange occurrences take place and whom do these people come back to? Who are the most important people in their lives? Those weaker partners. In the end, they and we realize that the stronger or more assertive member in a relationship is just as dependent on the weaker member as the weaker is on the strong. In this context they are seen as both playing roles essential to the relationship, the fact that one is more forceful than the other does not undermine the importance of the less assertive person¡¦s role. Of course this is not to be taken literally and applied to all relationships but it is a comment on or investigation of the idea of stronger and weaker partners in a relationship. The ultimate conclusion is a deconstruction of the hierarchy that shows the partners to be equal or at least codependent.

The next question is: "Why were all of these relationships unsuccessful?" My ascertation is that this plays into the strict nature of Japanese culture and Kitano's own morose sense of destiny, seen most vividly in "Sonatine". All the male characters make major life mistakes in the film. They attempt to rectify them by seeking comfort in the person they have wronged, or in the case of the blind man in the person with the closest connection. Why are they not allowed to start again? Why do they all fail? So many films are about starting over, that it's never too late to turn over a new leaf, old dogs can learn new tricks etc, etc. While I'm quite glad this is not the story of a spunky middle-aged former soccer mom who finds true love the second time around, I don't see the point in the absolute negation of the power of reconciliation. You'll have to ask Kitano about all that. I'm no Japanese cultural expert, though I have been there, but this seems to fall in line with the rather strict and unforgiving personality of Japanese society. If you've made a major mistake you have to accept it and take all the consequences willingly and bow to whatever your fate may be in response to those consequences. Kitano seems to embrace this idea of not being able to escape destiny in many films, I already mentioned "Sonatine" as a particularly poignant example of this.

I still think the ¡§Hanabai¡¨ is Kitano¡¦s best work, although watching a bunch of psychotic Japanese people run into walls and fall flailing into moats on Takeshi¡¦s Castle is good too. Dolls is interesting, worth a look and still better than 99% of films out there.

Told through a mixture of old Japanese culture and contemporary film- making, the three separate love stories overlap and interweave cleverly but subtly, too.

Without any sullying from saccharine sweetness or melancholy, all three tales strain the credibility of what we would normally think a person's love for another would go to. But, that's the beauty - this is a dream- felt movie, exaggerating hardship and our emotions to emphasise that extraordinary bond that love can be.

It's all interconnected by symbolisms and the extraordinary cinematography of Katsumi Yanagijima has us shimmering and floating in rose gardens, amongst autumnal leaves and under cherry-tree blossom. It is here that we take breath and sigh, after the often difficult human journeys we've just seen the characters go through. We cannot help but feel that we have journeyed with them - and perhaps suffered too.

To me, it's the first story of the jilted bride who's rejection sends her insane and the subsequent redemption and dedication from her boyfriend to the extent that they become homeless that it the most moving. Their story united the other two stories and adds symbolism at the end. The tale of the ageing Yakuza who finally feels that he needs more than his violent lifestyle to exist as a human being and the fanaticism for a young pop singer also paint vivid pictures on Japan's social and cultural agenda.

It did remind me of south Korea's 'Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter...' in that often idyllic and contemplative gestures and activities are interspersed with morally questioning random acts that leave cavities in people's lives and the atonement needed to rectify them; or at least to try to, in a soul-satisfying way.

"Dolls" is a gripping lesson in film as a visual medium, even when exploring territory that Beckett and Bergman handled verbally.

Takeshi Kitano wrote, directed and edited with astonishing beauty and poignancy, way beyond the audience pleasing romp of "Zatôichi: The Blind Swordsman." With minimal dialog, he is in a great partnership with the breathtaking cinematography of Katsumi Yanagishima, which uses seasonal changes as powerful visual and emotional metaphors as did "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom)," and the moody music of Joe Hisaishi, which effectively switches back and forth from traditional to Western instrumentation, as the film opens with a Bunraku puppet theater performance and then the stories of three casually intersecting couples gradually enact the sensibility of this what I presume is a traditional tale. The senses are so powerfully called upon that when two blinded characters stand in a rose garden I practically smelled the flowers.

While I am sure I missed a multitude of references and symbols, particularly colors, to elements of Japanese culture past and present, the very powerful themes of the spectrum of ambition destroying love such that love becomes a guilt-filled responsibility at one extreme and obsession at the other are similarly hauntingly recalled in Western culture, such as in old English ballads and more contemporary versions like "The Long Black Veil" and Springsteen's "Reason to Believe." I also felt resonances from "Waiting for Godot" to classics sensitively sympathetic to love-tossed women as "Madame Bovary" and "Anna Karenina."

Flashbacks are used powerfully in a Joycean stream of consciousness way, so that we see the memories, dreams and disturbing nightmares of the characters'associations, literally showing us the Faulknerian dictum that "The past is never dead. It's never even past." This adds considerable emotional build-up for each character as they restlessly return to geographies with meanings to their lives and we gradually see what they were like before their current emotionally (or in some cases physically) stunted states so we heartbreakingly understand their personal iconography, particularly for those two unforgettably bound beggars.

There is no Hollywood happy endings for these couples, only acceptance of the fates they have consciously and willingly chosen and committed themselves to. But their resignation is thrillingly moving in its very graphic representation.

3 stories of doomed relation ships. all jumbled together.

I just got done watching this movie. Yes it's slow. Yes there isn't a lot of dialogue. But this movie is brilliant. The visuals, the style, the symbolism, the utter sadness..

This isn't a movie for people who want action. or people who want dialogue. Visuals people, READ the visuals. The story is told through images.

It's beautiful. But very depressing.

HIGHLY recommended.

I was not aware that beauty like this existed in the world. In _Dolls_, director/writer Kitano draws us into a classical myth set in contemporary Japanese society. You may recognize elements borrowed from traditional legends (Oedipus, Arabian Nights, etc); however the central theme is, as far as I know, an original. It is the story of the "leashed beggars" who are introduced in the beginning, and whose story unfolds in a challenging, non-linear way as the film progresses.

I call it "challenging", because the viewer is compelled to pay attention to every detail in order to realize the plot and sublime theme. In that respect, it is much like _Citizen Kane_, told in fragments which the viewer must assemble and interpret. The underlying philosophy is yet more elusive and will have you debating for days afterward.

To me, what made this film superior to _Citizen Kane_ (through no fault of Orson Welles!) is the extreme use of colors and vivid scenery. The stunning backgrounds become a silent character in the movie, filling in for the sparse dialogue and periodic silence. As we evolve through Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, the saying comes to mind "a picture is worth a thousand words". If this review makes sense to you, then you will not be disappointed!

Takashi Kitano Yohji Yamamoto Jo Hisaishi Dolls (film title) -

Here are the initial reason to buy tickets at the Hong Kong Film

Festival. Seems to me it's a stars lined up film.

This is the first film I see from Takashi Kitano. And the synopsis on

the HKIFF brochures mentioned that it is the most violent film from

Kitano. I am no where to compare. However, I find a new way

Kitano interpret the film-language then other film makers.

Three stories made up Dolls. Two young ordinary couple want to

be together against all odds, big brother and her girlfriend who

has been waiting for him in the park for so many years, a big fan of

a female singer who tried to get close to his idol and be friend.

Three stories intertwined in a slight way, but they have one thing in

common - faith.

Kitano has stressed so much on the visuals, the costumes, the

naturals view - from sakura, to the snowy Hokaido. They all make

the visual of the film impressive. Red colour was presenting 'faith'

throughout the film, such as the red rope that tied the young

couple, the woman who waited in the park wears a red dress, fans

of the female singer wears a red jacket. However, i found this

irritating of such artificial serendipity. Like we see over and over

again the dead butterfly on the ground.

Although for me, it takes a lot of patience for the film as there is not

much dialogue and many scenes are long and static, you can find

new, refreshing elements in Kitano's film. Worth to watch.

If only the wonderful Bunraku doll theatre that opens Kitano's movie would've stayed on...

This arty celebration of pure and true love and the impossibility to retain it is filled with luminous tableaux and symbolic images, but to what effect? Two of the three slightly intertwined story lines (with the main thread of the roped up lovers being the exception) are simply maudlin and offer neither emotional nor intellectual resonance.

It's surely wonderful to look at and some small moments delight, but in retrospect, the pic's haphazard content and all too precious style result in a deeply flawed pretence of high art.

5 out of 10 Saturdays on a park bench

One of my friends once asked me to talk about Dolls, since it was a movie that really charmed me, and it's one of my favorites.

I really had to think carefully before starting to give any description... How can you describe a movie like this one?

You should see it.

Too hard to concentrate in words the symbols, atmospheres, emotions, silence, and everything you can find in this great work if you're thoughtful and receptive enough.

I'd really not recommend it if you like "light" and fast paced films, that's for sure. Dolls is so sad it sticks to your soul for hours, and its best parts are the ones you can catch from images, metaphors and details, that speak and live more than the plot itself and its dialogs can do.

This film is made for thinking, and it has a very special way to show thoughts, not for everyone in my humble opinion.

Dolls is 3 love stories, but I think love isn't the "main" theme... I'd say it covers a series of details, feelings and absurd things. The characters are always stroke by a world with a series of incidents and expectations that brings 'em far away from their dreams.

Dolls is aesthetic, and poetry.

Actor-Director Takeshi Kitano has received a lion's share of attention from the international film press and public for his often hard-edged, violent dramas about policemen and Japanese mafia, inflected with a touch of artistic flair.

Therefore, DOLLS comes almost as a total surprise and persuasively affirms Kitano's reputation as a cinematic artist. It illuminates another side of Kitano that is not evident in his other work – that of a poet moved by love. A lyrical tale of tragic sacrifices made in the name of eternal devotion, it follows the fate of three very different couples, linking their plights with that of a couple from a 17th-century bunraku puppet theater play, two sequences of the performance of which open and close the film, forming formidable book-ends which put the film's other passions into cultural context. The opening shots of the dolls coming to life at the hands of master puppeteers are nothing short of exhiliarating.

The cinematography by Katsumi Yanagishima is extraordinarily fluid and opulent. The clothing was designed by progressive couturier Yohji Yamamoto, himself once a subject of a film (Wim Wenders' little-seen 1989 documentary NOTEBOOK ON CITIES AND CLOTHES) and the costume designer on Kitano's previous film BROTHER.

The film slowly but surely draws the viewer into the characters' inner worlds: a young man running from an arranged marriage at the last minute, his true love – a fragile girl pushed to the brink of insanity by the thought of him leaving her, an aging gangster in the autumn of his life faced with the stalwartly loyal woman he left years ago to join the yakuza, an obsessively devoted fan of a bubble-gum pop star who commiserates with her in her disfigurement after an accident. There is an unreal, fairy-tale feel to the proceedings that creates a pervasive air of mystery. The film is powerful in a strangely low-key way and its narrative flexibility defies explanation while leaving itself open to many different interpretations. It is definitely a film that requires an active imagination to appreciate, and its minimalism and inscrutability are part of the unique fascination it conjures. Highly recommended.

I like Kitano very much, to the point to say that he is one of the top 5 movie directors alive. There is no doubt that he is original and has a personal way of making cinema; he has trademark.

The movie is not slow, contrary to some critic's point of view. However, I must say that I got worn out by the countless shots of the cord that joins the two main characters. We see it over and over again; what is the point? we've seen it, no need to repeat it so many times.

The same happens with the butterfly at the beginning. I can't remember how many shots of the butterfly dead on the floor. We got the message in the first or second shot, what is the point to show it more times? And the journey the two main characters make nearly at the end seems so long.

These would be my major complaints about his latest work. Apart from that, Dolls is good and show us all the mastery of Takeshi. One more time it is "refreshing" to see a new movie of the japanese master Kitano even though Dolls is not one of his best films. It looks like his latest best work is still Kikujiro.

I am pleased to rate this a ten out of ten! I do not go for "odd" movies much but this one is different. There are several story plots and you have to sit patiently and watch them play out. The theme is relationships and love. The colors are beautiful, it is well acted, and the music is gorgeous. I did cry a lot though. If you don't want to get out your handkerchief, then don't see this one. It would be good to see this movie with a lover. If you are lonely and don't have a lover, this might cheer you up, because it shows how relationships can be sad, negative and even fatal things. I am perhaps swept up in the emotion of just seeing this film, but really, I think it deserves a "ten."

Visually, Dolls is a meeting between the style of Kitano's "Fireworks" and "Scene at the Sea" with that of Yimou Zhang's "House of Flying Daggers" (what with the crazy colour saturation and all). It was slow, well directed, and beautifully shot, with at least passable acting and intermittent scripting. Watching this movie is like seeing three lovely, modern Japanese short stories intent only upon evoking a mood. It isn't for everybody, but art lovers of various stripes will find something to appreciate in it.

It contains 3 stories, running concurrently, told in a very confusing series of flashbacks which nearly devastate any sense of time. There is a simple and obvious thematic connection between the three tales; each focues on tragic, personal, and eccentric love. Even so, the way the stories are intertwined seems forced and flimsy. And none of the endings are very satisfying. Both the slow pacing and the many-layered memory-based flashbacks set a nostalgic, almost mournful mood, but can also alienate the audience. The film never really hits a rhythm, and the flashbacks have nothing to distinguish them from what is presently happening in one story or another.

"Dolls" would benefit from repeat viewing, but it's a little too much to be watched any time soon after seeing it. Also, a more thorough understanding of Japanese culture and, specifically, the bunraku (Japanese puppet theatre) which underlays the movie (both as an art and as regards the specific story focused upon in the bunraku scenes included in the movie) would make the piece more immediately accessible. There are some things I picked up on, thanks to my limited knowledge of Japan, that I doubt most non-Japanese people would know of, but I am certain there is much I missed along those lines.

I'm a big fan of Kitano's work--his writing, his directing, his acting in Japanese movies, his comedy, his paintings are all impressive in their own ways--but I would not recommend this movie to most people, including the man's own fans. With that in mind, it's still worth watching in its own manner.

Well, yesterday I had the chance to see the dolls and with one word I was mesmerized. Mr Kitano did gather up a marvellous group of people. Yohji Yamamoto, one of the living legend of Japan, prepared wonderful costumes for all characters. The score was divine and cinematography was a unique masterpiece. I truly felt myself hypnotized by the power of images and music. Yet, I still think the person who has to credited for this heavenly masterpiece is Mr Kitano. Kitano uses every aspect of cinema wisely. Editing of the the movie, all those flashbacks and flashforwards are phenomenal. Three separate love stories are intertwined with a great harmony.

Mr Kitano and his heartbroken characters did break my heart and left me speechless. With the tears in my eyes I watched the dance of flying images. Dolls is a poem of images for sure and Takeshi Kitano is a rare director who can put his heart to his movie and become a poet.

I liked the mood of the film, the cinematography is sublime, the acting is spot on, the directing is perfect but the overall story felt very DULL and out of balance...

I liked the story and the cinematography and the acting and so on an so forth like most everyone here..... but dang, all this talk about how "painfully beautiful and sad" the movie was just make me wanna throw up. I check the comment hoping someone can explain what the ending meant, but all i read is how beautiful and sad the movie is and how great kitano is. pss.. all that is great but freak... why can't someone just say what it means instead of all this artsy crap talk ? saw a few of kitano's movie. i have to say sonatine is pretty watchable. especially the part where the chick takes off her dress in the jungle. Saw a pretty amazing movie couple days ago called "stranger of mine". check it out you won't be disappointed.

Being a huge fan of Takeshi Kitano since his very first works I found "Dolls" a great disappointment. This film intertwines three stories inspired by Bunraku, traditional japanese marionette's theatre. It should be an ode to eternal love and its overwhelming importance over success in life but it fails because of Kitano's "poetic" narrative style. "Dolls" finally provides only a slight amount of supposed to be beautiful images, stunning colors, cheap symbolisms and nothing more. We are in Japan so there are also cherry blossoms, almonds in flower and snowy mountains, like in the most banal segments of Akira Kurosawa's "Dreams". It seems that too many awards in western film festivals deprived Kitano of his dry, cruel humour and gave him in change the sloppy, sugary look at life we saw in "Brother" already. Unlike "Silence at the sea" and "Hana-Bi", "Dolls" lacks that laconic and unsentimental way of depicting feelings which was one of Kitano' trademarks. Acclaimed as one the most original authors of the earliest nineties, after receiving the "Leone d'oro" for "Hana-Bi" Kitano started releasing films which seem unintentional spoofs of his previous works; he's maybe becoming that kind of director who is not satisfied with making films: he wants to deliver some true "art". Arty must be the most appropriate word for this misfire. Boring is the second most appropriate. I gave it 5/10 only because I don't want to inflict a too low rate on a such a great director's film.