Millennium Actress (Steelbook) - BLU-RAY

Among the limited offerings from the late, great animator Satoshi Kon was this piece, showcasing his multilayered style of storytelling that boggles the mind and entertains deeply at the same time. Documentary filmmaker Genya, doing a piece on the recently shuttered Ginei Studios, meets with its most famous actress, Chiyoko Fujiwara, who has become a recluse following her departure from stardom. With the aid of a long-missing artifact from her life, she regales the filmmaker and his cameraman with her life story, and in doing so she literally makes the two men part of the action, in a manner as only Satoshi Kon could handle. This title is an essential for Kon fans and anime collectors in general, not merely because it was among the few works he was able to produce in his tragically short life, but also because it is beautiful. moving, and complex enough to keep your mind occupied for the duration, separating fiction from reality as Chiyoko relives her past. This feature hasn't been on home video for the better part of two decades (it was originally released in 2001), but now it's on Blu-ray, and better than ever. Pick it up if you can.

This is one of my favorite movies and the Blu-ray remaster looks great.

One of the finest examples of surrealistic animation one can find. This film provides valuable relevance at nearly every level.

I am an otaku and biased. This movie has great animation and an excellent plot. It would be perfect for the family to watch.

The movie’s heroine is herself a movie heroine in the story. As she is interviewed about her life story, the interviewers are documenting her life in stream of conscious vignettes in which her real life is intermingled with her life as an actress and her roles as an actress. The action goes from slow and thoughtful to breakneck speed with transitions from movie role to movie role and back to real life.