Tokyo Godfathers (2003)
Directed by Satoshi Kon
On Christmas Eve, three homeless people living on the streets of Tokyo discover a newborn baby among the trash and set out to find its parents.
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Satoshi Kon follows his meta homage to the movies, Millennium Actress , with a Christmas card to Tokyo’s homeless inspired by John Ford’s religious western 3 Godfathers.
Adapted loosely from John Fords 1948 Western 3 Godfathers, this story of three homeless people a grizzled, world-weary drunk, an over-emotional drag queen, and a headstrong but vulnerable runaway girl who find an abandoned infant on a snowy Christmas Eve and traverse Tokyo in search of her birth parents is an honest and heartfelt parable.
Tokyo Godfathers is what happens when John Ford's sentimental 1948 Western ''3 Godfathers'' is reset in modern-day Tokyo on Christmas Eve by rising Japanese postmodern anime filmmaker Satoshi Kon: John Wayne and his fellow desert bandits are replaced by a homeless alkie, a former drag queen, and a sullen teenage runaway who find an infant girl while scrounging through city trash and band together to find her parents.
Inspired by the 1949 John Ford chestnut "3 Godfathers," in which a troika of cowboy-bandits (including John Wayne) rescues a newborn, "Tokyo Godfathers" unwinds in more straightforward fashion than Kon's earlier features.
Based on an old story by Peter B. Kyne, this material has been made into at least half a dozen Hollywood films, including several during the silent era, and most notably John Ford's 1948 film 3 Godfathers.
While neither as visually nor as thematically intricate as Millennium Actress, Satoshi Kon’s Tokyo Godfathers – a reimagining of John Ford’s weepy Western 3 Godfathers in which three homeless friends attempt to return an abandoned baby to its parents on Christmas Eve – is nonetheless a delightfully rambunctious holiday fable about the vital importance of family.
Even as it evokes classic Christmas fare like Miracle on 34th Street (1947) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Tokyo Godfathers is loosely based on John Ford's Three Godfathers (1948), whose pseudo-Christian plotline is also the inspiration for Three Men and a Baby (1987).
This is a journey picture that nods to O. Henry and "The Wizard of Oz" while cracking pulp surprises like a whip.
From one pit stop to the next, their savior tot facilitates a string of serendipitous, sometimes confusing reconnects: Gin reunites with the daughter he believes to have shamed; Hana (a dead ringer for Pixote‘s Marília Pêra) seeks guidance from his drag queen “Mother”; and Miyuki deals with her relationship to her dead cat.
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There are some, like “Down and Out in Beverly Hills” and “My Man Godfrey,” but, still, not exactly a popular subject.
Every face in this movie is surreally long, and Hana is the toughest but most steadfastly unglamorous transvestite since John Lithgow in "The World According to Garp."
There are some, like “Down and Out in Beverly Hills” and “My Man Godfrey,” but, still, not exactly a popular subject.
Unlike Hayao Miyazaki (" Spirited Away ," " My Neighbor Totoro "), his style doesn't approach full-motion animation, but uses the simplified approach of a lot of anime, with simple backgrounds and characters who move and talk in a stylized way that doesn't approach realism.
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Anime director Satoshi Kon, who gave us last year’s marvelous “Millennium Actress,” has created a work of art that should become a staple for Christmas holiday viewing a la “A Christmas Story,” “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Scrooge” (the 1951 Alistair Sim version of Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carrol”).
In the grand tradition of It's a Wonderful Life , Satoshi's Tokyo Godfathers makes a lovely Christmas film.
Yoshiaki Umegaki is called upon to sing a few numbers, most amusingly "Climb Every Mountain" from "The Sound of Music," in addition to his delicious vocal work.