[PLOT SUMMARY: Three bums find a baby on New Year’s Eve.
HAIKU REVIEW: Holiday caper.
Lighthearted optimism,
Homeless heroics.
This movie actually had about 3 haikus IN the film itself. They were used as comedy; it was cool seeing them used as such.
UNCOMFORTABLE PLOT SUMMARY (inspired by this): [highlight for spoilers]→ Crazy bitch, bums, steal baby.
PEOPLE: Satoshi Kon just died recently (as of the writing of this review), and as such, we are trying to watch all his movies.
QUIRKS: An anime Christmas story. Kind of rare, since Japan isn’t Christian at all. But they love celebrations and holidays, so they celebrate Christmas in a secular fashion — like many Americans. We have 3 bums — one of which is a transsexual — finding a baby, and trying to return it to its owner. All kinds of incredibly unlikely coincidences drive the story.
VISUALS: Definitely way more anchored in reality than Satoshi Kon’s other movies that we’ve seen so far. (And not just visually so.)
SOUNDTRACK: Weird hearing Christmas songs in Japanese — I really think so.
MORALS: Don’t steal babies. Oh, and probably some deeper spiritual bullshit that I’m not interested in. Allegory about the Three Wise Men, blah blah Jesus blah blah blah.
GOOD STUFF: Satoshi Kon is a master director and animator, so the movie is done quite well.
BAD STUFF: Some people will complain that the Spanish parts [one scene really] were not subtitled, but this is the director’s intention, so quit your bellyaching.
CONCLUSION: A quirky, upbeat, light-hearted New Year’s Eve adventure/mystery/caper, full of hope and unlikely coincidences. Definitely some humor sandwiched within.
RATINGS:
Clint: Netflix: 3/5 stars. IMDB: 7/10.
Carolyn: Netflix: 4/5 stars. IMDB: 8/10. She’s more into sentimental movies than I.
The native public rating for this movie is: IMDB: 7.7/10, Netflix: 3.8/5 stars (Netflix‘s predicted rating for us was 3.4/5 stars. A good guess–it’s the average of our two ratings!).
RECOMMENDATION: People who want good anime — and dislike shitty anime — should check this out.
MOVIE QUOTE: Gin: You can’t get milk from an old queer’s tits, no matter how hard you think.
COINCIDENCES: This movie is full of ‘em!
FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Some people liked this one. Some liked it even better than Paprika!
Mood: less tired
Music: Sepultura – Anticop (live)
