Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
EmpireDeLuna
I never knew cinema could be this, honest...
THERE'S A CHUNK OF SPOILER AT THE END, BECAUSE SCREW IT! THERE'S NO OTHER WAY TO PROPERLY GET THIS FEELING OUT OF MY CHEST!
After faithfully spending so much time marathoning Satoshi Kon's work with a very messy order, it's kind of a miracle that the finish line just happens to be this. The second movie that i was accidentally skipped over. Millennium Actress, the most beautiful swan song i've ever heard, the perfect ending to this long journey!
This is the most honest, most sincere, most emotionally draining story ever told in the medium of animation. Although the basic foundation may seem familiar at first glance, and has its fair share of flat moments here and there, the many flaws actually came together as a catharsis to make the movie fe…
Read at the sourceOkamii_JA
Wow, what a boring movie. The story was incredibly weak, with tons of random cutscenes that made no sense — clearly just filler to stretch the runtime. The only thing somewhat decent was the animation.
The plot? It's basically about a girl who meets a guy being chased by the police and immediately falls in love with him. He drops a key, she finds it, and when she tries to return it, he tells her to give it back "when they meet again." So she starts searching for him… seriously? That’s it. No character development, no real events, no meaningful progression — just an old lady narrating her past drama.
Honestly, I had to push myself just to make it to the end. I paused the movie several times because it just couldn’t keep my attention. I really don’t get how some people enjoyed it — though,…
Read at the sourcenegrut
Have you guys watched the same movie as i???
The movie i watched 10 minutes ago was 1:26Hrs of this "INCREDIBLE" PLOTLINE: A old woman tells her "stupendous" love (i think?????) story, she was in her likely 16 when she meets an OUTLAW, TAKES HIM HOME, TAKES CARE OF HIM (WITHOUT ASKING NAME OR ANYTHING), in the other day he leaves... AND SHE SPENDS HER ENTIRE LIFE LOOKING FOR THIS GUY. Alright, this is the plot.. Repeated for more than A HOUR. But hey, the "aesthetic" its great and pseudo-cult likely, and this PIECE S*, sorry, this plot is repeated in various scenarios, i forgot to quote but she becomes an actress. And she plays the same role in all her movies, which is in this case the same Muggle role she plays in her "real life" that I mentioned above (she has a less acting roles than fr…
Read at the sourcePreachee
Minor spoilers ahead.
Millennium Actress is a film that can easily be called great. It is outwardly audacious and seemingly gorgeous in nature.
Though in reality, Millennium Actress seems like it would be praised as long as the aesthetics are nice, the plot is not straightforward and that it is directed by Satoshi Kon. Not only are the fans often completely oblivious of any criticisms, but their belief that this movie is a magnum opus also won't change because of what was mentioned (as ridiculous as it sounded). About it being a faultless masterpiece, I beg to differ.
The story is downright average and uninspiring. That said, the story has a heart, with an intention that remains clear and consistent. Unfortunately, this is also one of my biggest gripes - the movie is rather 'static' fo…
Read at the sourceCodeBlazeFate
*spoilers ahead*
Millennium Actress is a spellbinding film. Satoshi Kon’s second cinematic masterpiece is a harrowing drama that plays with reality and fiction to tell an intricate tale full of powerful twists and turns. In many ways, it’s like a novel, sucking us into their world and forcing us to observe. More than that, it gives us the power to interact with the story in some way, as our interactions both suck us in further and become our only link to reality.
The film features a former star, Chiyoko Fujiwara, and her two interviewers, Genya Tachibana and Kyouji Ida. As they sit down and prepare for filming, our leading lady invites us and these two men into a life story so mesmerizing it takes on a life of its own, blending and camouflaging reality with the eight fictions that embodi…
Read at the sourceKrunchyman
“Hmm…I wonder how he’ll mind f—k me this time?” — Krunchyman
While the narrative shuffling between film (i.e. fiction) and reality seemed a bit jarring, it simply disguised the insipidness in the overall theme being pushed forward. Sure, it’s a creative method of presenting a “love” story, but it felt, more or less, forced down the viewer’s throat. Let us remember that Chiyoko fell in “love” with this fellow after a brief encounter, then decided to concentrate all of her effort on chasing him down for the rest of her life. But is anyone that “psychotic” to devote their entire life for a person they hardly know? Haven’t we learned from our own and/or other’s experiences, that love is fickle, and emotions have a high likelihood of changing, particularly over an extended period of time? Fur…
Read at the sourceFleure
The camera zooms towards a slowly-expanding earth from the eyes of the outer Celestials; it glides closer and closer until finally reaching stasis on a face bidding goodbye to her present domain.
As liftoff begins, the heroine speaks her last lines as the shot fades from the heart-clenching scene to a cluttered office, where one man watches the same scene on his little desk-television. Interrupted by the call of his coworker, he rewinds the tape and the one scene changes into a montage of the actress’s life - in reverse.
These scenes and the actress in them, the man watching the actress, and the co-worker beckoning the man ultimately become the driving force of one of Satoshi Kon’s cinematic masterpieces titled Sennen Joyuu (or Millennium Actress).
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Read at the sourceAnimeindian
Why do you watch a movie? Do you watch a movie for novelty or enjoyment, do you watch a movie that makes sense or do you like movies that are senseless? If you like movies for their novelty and senselessness (but not fun), if you want to feel smart and want to comfort yourself that you have exquisite tests, then the Millennium Actress is the movie for you. If you like the world that makes sense and love enjoyable movies then you will despise it. I am one of the few people who dislike this movie, as always I am sadly in minority. Now let us visit what this movie does right and what it does wrong.
Imagine that, you met a young man probably beautiful and he is wanted by the government for his crime against nation (don’t ask what crimes), you give him shelter for the night (don’t ask me why)…
Read at the sourceNervin
Love is an act of will, an emotion that can usher individuals to take monumental, illogical actions; be it sacrificing yourself for the person you long for, or the endless chase after your beloved one. In the case of Sennen Joyuu, or Millenium Actress, it made shape the life of a young girl in her quest to find the love of her life. It is a fantastic journey with a fascinating approach in the narrative of the story.
Genya Tachibana reaches out to the enigmatic idol of his youth, Chiyoko Fujiwara, leading actress for nearly three decades, to make a documentary of her. This may seem as something simple at first glance, yet the approach it took on the narrative was truly captivating: both Genya and his companion find themselves spiraling through the life of Chiyoko as she reminisces about he…
Read at the sourceFlawfinder
As I hinted in my 5/cm review, I’m not really a fan of Millennium Actress. I don’t dislike it, but in the four years since I first watched, I find that I just can’t summon much enthusiasm for it. Even though it’s lauded by many critics as one of the finest pieces of animation to come from Japan, and many anime elitists consider it to be perfect in about every way, it never occupies my mind for long and all I can do whilst watching it is go “whatever”. It didn’t do a thing for me when I first saw it, and even when I rewatched it after reading other reviews that highlighted how great it was, I had as much of a reaction to it as I do whenever I watch a ninja movie. Or Election 2016 candidate speeches.
But I guess before I can really delve into this movie, I should say what it’s about. Well,…
Read at the sourceawerture
Satoshi Kon's "Millennium actress" is a breathtakingly brilliant film. It was so breathtaking that I'm still in awe and I feel forced to write my life's first unconditionally positive review.
What primarily needs to be noted here is that it is brilliant as a work of art, and not only as a piece of entertainment. It is clearly a traditional cinema movie, not an "anime" of the type Westerner is accustomed to. As such you shouldn't expect almost any typical elements you learned to adore in the works you treasure in your anime list. It's also not advisable to judge the movie by classical MAL categories, especially in "Story" and "Character" sections. "Sennen Joyuu" doesn't tell any substantial story. Ok, it does, to a degree, it can be potentially described as simplistic yet gripping romance…
Read at the sourcemyronator
Millenium Actress is a critically acclaimed film depicting the life of a fictional actress in search of love. Fictional biographies have been done before (one that comes to mind being Citizen Kane) and they don't seem to be something that are best told through the medium of anime. But the name Satoshi Kon is involved, which means that this isn't going to be an ordinary portrayal of this kind of film.
The narrative begins with a local interviewer meeting a successful actress who has become a recluse since retiring from the industry. It does not take long before the plot develops. The premise for the film may not seem entirely believable at first; a young girl pursuing a career in acting to look for a stranger whom she fell in love with over night. But, as the story progresses, it becomes…
Read at the sourceHootja
Millennium Actress is a movie that shows us that remembering the past and reliving the past might actually be the same thing.
Story: 10
*THIS SECTION OF MY REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS. Here I'm going to mostly do some hardcore analysis of the themes of the movie, so if that's not your thing then feel free to skip this section. Just leave knowing that I think the story is hard to follow on a first viewing, but if you like stuff that makes you think, then this movie is definitely for you. If you want a movie to relax and watch mindlessly, then this is not for you.*
In a way, there are two stories in this movie. The first is the surface-level story. The surface-level story is that two guys approach the titular character in order to make a documentary about her life as a famous actress. She te…
Read at the sourceNeverKnowsBest26
When Satoshi Kon died in late 2010, the anime industry had lost one of its greatest talents. Kon’s movies were imaginative, unmistakable works of artistic majesty. His stylized explorations into the human psyche exemplified the strengths of animation like nothing else, while also pushing the possibilities of the medium even further. The striking surreal dreamscapes he conjured up were more than just aesthetically beautiful, they were integral to the stories he told, exploiting the power of visual storytelling to its fullest. The perfect showcase of Kon’s talent is his 2001 sophomore directorial effort, Millennium Actress, a love letter to movies and life itself that stands as an incomparable masterpiece of modern cinema.
Though Millennium Actress was his second movie, this Kon’s first ori…
Read at the sourceazuslu7jpg
“After all, it’s the chasing after him I really love.”
As always, my reviews are spoiler free.
Millennium Actress is another work of the late Satoshi Kon, a man who had an amazing ability to blur the lines between reality and dreams, even in a medium of almost entirely fiction. And like his other works, Millennium Actress doesn’t just tell a story, but takes you on a journey through the world and through the human mind. In this film, the viewer travels through decades of the life of the famous actress Chiyoko Fujiwara, following her as she chases a man she once met and a dream that she is always one step behind.
Story - 10/10
The story begins when a reporter and fan of Chiyoko’s work, Genya, is sent with his cameraman to interview her about her rich career as an actress over the past…
Read at the sourceSkadi
Millennium Actress is a wonderfully crafted story about a fateful encounter of a young girl and how it shaped the rest of her life. Though I am always a little hesitant about awarding such high marks to anything, this movie was one of the most riveting and unique anime experiences I have had.
The story follows a pair of filmmakers who are interviewing a famous actress who has been retired for many years to celebrate the studio's 70th anniversary. Millennium Actress features one of the most original story telling methods I have seen. We see the majority of the movie told through the actresses various movie roles. We shift from feudal Japan, World War 2, and a futuristic moon base, amongst others. You are never actually sure what is real and what is the movie all the time. I also found it i…
Read at the sourceShadowBlazer3000
This film proved me one thing: Only can Satoshi Kon make something like this and have it branded good. I don't want to say it's bad or terrible, because it does have several redeeming qualities to it. M.A. is a very diffrent kind of anime which I jump at in a heart beat most of the time. The storyline is told in a non-linear fashion which will confuse you the first time around. The story is diffrent and it is an almost tug at your heart strings, at the same time it will make you scratch your head.
As I mentioned before the story is told non-linear in that it jumps all over the place. Non-linear storytelling has been an effective story telling tool for ages, used in movies like Star Wars, it usually can enhance the story telling, but for the most part, I think it tends to hurt MA more than…
Read at the sourcedigitalacid
At its core, Millennium Actress is a simple story about a simple desire. How far will you go to grasp it within your hands? How much will you sacrifice, how long will you wait, how fast will you run to see it come to life? It doesn't have to be a shadowy figure on the run from the law, his face glimpsed for just a second, it could be anything. I'm reminded of Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet: "Ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write?" It's a compelling question, and Kon paints his response through his dazzling storytelling, blurring the lines between fiction and reality and sometimes dashing them completely. Most of the narrative is presented through Chiyoko's memories and recollections of the movies she's done over the years. Art reflects life as her tire…
Read at the sourcekiriska
"What does this key open?" "The most important thing in the world."
STORY - Millennium Actress's story is very simplistic and very sweet. I'm not usually a fan of unquestioning, devotional love, especially to such a crazed, obsessive extent, but the way this movie presents things makes it very easy to like. Just the extent of everything, the lengths to which Chiyoko had been willing to go; all of it was incredible. Even better still, was the idea that we in the audience could not know just how much of it was real and just how much of it was fantasy. The lines seem permanently blurred and any one scene might have just as easily been a memory or a dream, especially since all of the recollections are coming at an age where forgetfulness is common, making everything all the more tragic.
The…
Read at the sourceDarvus_Laan
There isn't much I can say about this but...WOW. Between the art, the music (oh, the music), the storytelling, and the overall surrealism of the whole experience, it's at the very top of my MUST WATCH anime list. The last line, if nothing else, gets me every...single...time. Yes, that's right...real tears! The story is THAT good. Man, I'm getting a lump in my throat just thinking about it. The whole movie is a roller coaster and the ending is one of the best written in all of cinema, in my very humble opinion.
I think one of the reasons this is so good is the way the story is told. An actress' life story re-told as a blend of both factual memory and through the eyes of the characters she portrayed in film over the years. What makes it truly unique is how the ones conducting the "intervie…
Read at the source