Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa Writers: Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Max Mannix, Sachiko Tanaka
Cinematography: Akiko Ashizawa Music: Kazumasa Hashimoto Cast: Teruyuki Kagawa, Kyoko Koizumi,
Yu Koyanagi, Kai Inowaki, Haruka Igawa, Kanji Tsuda, Kazuya Kojima, Koji Yakusho, Jaosn Gray
Disc company: Eureka! / Masters of Cinema Series Video: 1080p 1.85:1
Audio: Dolby TrueHD 2.0 Japanese, DTS-HD MA 2.0 Japanese, Dolby Digital 2.0 Japanese
Subtitles: English Disc: BD50 (All Region) Release Date: 06/22/2009
Available for purchase through Amazon.com
Note: Due to the Sony DADC warehouse fire in London earlier this month the majority of the back-stock for Tokyo Sonata was destroyed. Eureka / Masters of Cinema are in the process of repressing this, along with many of the other titles whose stock was lost, as combination DVD / Blu-ray editions. Ignore any indications you may find of this title being out of print (including exorbitant Amazon and eBay marketplace prices1) – it will be back.
There’s one brilliant moment among the many in Tokyo Sonata that stands out to me on every viewing. As the unemployed businessman father of the story’s central family waits in line at a work placement center, his similarly unemployed businessman friend turns to him and confesses that his wife, from whom he has been hiding his joblessness, is beginning to suspect. ”I have to find a way to make her trust me2,” he says, before concocting a faked business dinner to bolster the illusion that his life is continuing as usual. The thought of telling her the truth, and thus accepting his own condition, never crosses his mind.
This brief scene is the crux of Tokyo Sonata, to date the last film from Kiyoshi Kurosawa (best known in the West for his allegorical horror features Cure and Kairo), a film that inhabits a world all too familiar, in which familial communication has broken down and mistrust is the order of the day. Kurosawa’s knack for developing a lurking sense of unease serves him well here, where he effortlessly transposes it onto the mundane verisimilitude of a traditional family drama. It’s easy to separate oneself from the surreal threats posed by homicidal mesmerists or ghostly blotches of human grease, but Tokyo Sonata dwells on the far less sensational horrors of everyday life, and is all the more affecting for it.
Set contemporaneously and reflecting a time of growing threats to the family unit (a global economic recession, the war on terror, and the age-old problem of career centrism), Tokyo Sonata follows the implosion and subsequent transcendental rise of the Sasaki family. One stormy morning father Ryuhei (the excellent Teruyuki Kagawa, Serpent’s Path) is unceremoniously ejected from his administrative position, the price of the outsourcing of his department to nearby China. Finding himself suddenly astray, with the career upon which he built his identity only a memory, Ryuhei desperately attempts to keep up appearances, spending his regular hours waiting in the long lines at the local work placement center and taking charity lunches alongside the city’s homeless population.
At home Ryuhei’s veneer of authority begins to crack, as his relationship with both his wife and two children continues a steady deterioration set in motion long before his job was lost. Housewife Megumi (Kyoko Koizumi) itches to express herself from beyond the confines of her daily routine, while wayward older son Takashi (Yu Koyanagi) tries to find his place in life through a series of dead-end jobs. Meanwhile younger son Kenji (Kai Inowaki in his acting debut), failing to find a place for himself in a traditional school system in which he and his instructor are constantly at each other’s throats, develops an unexpected interest in learning to play the piano. With his social position lost and the possibility of matching his former position practically non-existent, Ryuhei takes out his frustrations on those from whom he should be seeking support. He ignores his wife, argues with Takashi and categorically denies Kenji’s request to learn the piano, driving the three of them further and further from him in the process.
As Ryuhei’s attempts at domination increase each of his family members begin their own private rebellions against it. Takashi, in seeking a direction for his life, joins the military and becomes embroiled in a conflict in the Middle East. Megumi earns her driver’s license, an expensive privilege, and begins window shopping for both a car and an escape. Kenji finds a dysfunctional keyboard in a garbage heap and learns to use it as best he can, and stashes his monthly lunch allowance away for secret piano lessons. All the while tension between the four is growing, and Ryuhei, finding himself trading administrative work for the degrading position of shopping center janitor, seems poised for a violent outburst…
Tokyo Sonata comprises some of the most absurdly horrifying imagery of Kurosawa’s career, imagery whose impact is heightened by the uncomfortable reality it represents. As Ryuhei wanders through the streets of Tokyo he finds a whole disaffected population of the similarly lost, hordes of former businessmen who have defined themselves by their careers and who now waste away the working hours in public libraries, city parks and charity lunch lines. The impact of the visuals here is near universal – who can’t relate to losing a job, and the sense of “what now?” hopelessness that so often comes along with it? Tokyo Sonata also plumbs the unsettling depths to which that hopelessness can drag us all, from the development of self-destructive personalities to the grim finality of suicide. It is in these moments, in which the lows are at their lowest, that the film proves most unsettling. As Ryuhei becomes overtly abusive the final thread that holds his family together is ripped away – Kenji attempts to run away, but falls afoul of the law, while Megumi turns an attempted home invasion into an unlikely opportunity for escape…
But with the future at its most uncertain and the Sasaki family in its darkest hour, the sun both proverbially and literally rises – the Kurosawan equivalent of “…tomorrow is another day!”. The reconciliation of Tokyo Sonata never feels cheap or manipulative, and avoids the happy family cliches of similar efforts. Instead, at the height of their irresponsibility, the individual members of the Sasaki find themselves, and realize in no uncertain terms that which they are at risk of losing. Ryuhei and his wife cease to strive for happiness in what they don’t have, and instead find contentedness in what they do, while son Kenji offers a moment of uncompromising beauty – a soulful piano recitation of Debussy’s Claire de Lune. It’s the concept of mono no aware in action, a fleeting moment of transcendental bliss that’s all the more impacting for the ugliness that preceded it.
There are those who tout Tokyo Sonata as Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s masterpiece, and given the wealth of awards and praise it has garnered I can hardly argue with them. It is certainly his most accessible film to date, presenting a universal story of familial progression with neither the ambivalence or ambiguity that has marked so much of his prior work. And while the existential themes familiar to his career are present and accounted for, from the obscure nature of identity to the issues of communication posed by modern society, the end results are all together different. Bleak as the world of Tokyo Sonata may be, the sun still rises on it and the birds still sing, and its ugliness, like all things, is transient.
Limited to DVD-only editions both domestically and in its native Japan, Kiyoshi Kurosawaw’s award-winning Tokyo Sonata has been given its due respect in a phenomenal Blu-ray edition courtesy of Eureka! Entertainment’s Masters of Cinema series. Though produced in the United Kingdom I’m pleased to report that this edition of the film is ALL REGION compatible, with even the standard definition supplements rendered in a globally digestible NTSC format, leaving nothing in the way of excuses for why anyone shouldn’t have it in their collection.
Presented in full 1080p for the first time anywhere in the world, Tokyo Sonata is granted a properly framed 1.85:1 transfer and a healthy AVC encode (average video bitrate is 29.4 Mbps) in its Blu-ray debut. The two hour feature is spread across just over 30 Gb of a dual layer BD50, and the results are both impressive and honest. After toying with digital filming technology in Doppelganger, Bright Future and Loft, Kurosawa and ace director of photography Akiko Ashizawa have returned to 35mm photography, and I couldn’t be happier. The imagery here is rich in both real world detail and the untouched texture of the medium itself, a 1-2 combination that I can’t help but love. Contrast is at healthy levels throughout, as is the intentionally limited color palette. This won’t be the most vibrant or demo-worthy transfer you’ve seen, and there’s even some printed film damage (specks and a few larger marks) to contend with, but the image remains honest to the source photography throughout. I suspect this is a reference-level transfer for the title in question, and it retains its deliciously filmic qualities even when the image is zoomed-in to 200-300% its intended size. Those looking for complaints will find none here today – this one looks precisely as it should.
Eureka present Tokyo Sonata with not one but two HD audio choices in the original 2.0 Japanese – a variable bitrate Dolby TrueHD track at around 600-800 kbps, and a DTS-HD MA option at around 1.7 Mbps. Though I suspect the DTS-HD MA track, with more than double the bitrate, should be technically stronger, I found it impossible to discern a difference between the two. Like the majority of Kurosawa’s work, the sound design here is quite subtle and restrained, with occasional punctuation from louder effects and minimalist soundtrack cues. Dialogue is crisp and intelligible throughout, with no undue technical flaws – not that I was expecting any from this very recent production. As with the visuals, I’d say the audio here is precisely as it should be. A lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Japanese option is also included for the sake of completeness. The optional English subtitles that accompany the feature are clear and legible, appear quite well translated, and don’t suffer the sparsity evident on some translations. As an uncultured American I did muse at some of the verbage – “smartarse” jumps to mind. Again, I’ve no complaints.
Supplements appear to duplicate those that appear on the Japanese DVD edition, and with the exception of the UK trailer for the feature (3 minutes, HD) are all presented in 480p SD. You get a Making Of documentary (61 minutes) that covers literally every aspect of the production and features plenty of behind-the-scenes footage, a Q & A Session (12 minutes) and other footage (15 minutes) from the September 2008 premiere in Tokyo, as well as a discussion of the benefits of seeing the film on DVD from the cast and director (9 minutes). I enjoy the respectful and appreciative tone of these pieces more than those of their American counterparts, which are typically no more than studio fluff. The humility of all those involved is not lost on this reviewer, and I look forward to seeing more from all of them. Rounding things out is a thick 28 page booklet that features a brief director’s statement from Kiyoshi Kurosawa and a excellent original essay by B. Kite.
I really can’t recommend Tokyo Sonata enough, whether you’re a fan of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s brand of cinema or not. This is certainly a standout piece in his impressive oeuvre, and well deserving of the attention it has received. This was my first import Blu-ray, as well as my first experience the Masters of Cinema series, and I was duly impressed on both counts. MoC have put together a stellar high definition release, from the basics of the transfer right on up, and one that no self-respecting cinema buff should be without. You’ll not find a higher recommendation from me than here – this is must-have stuff.
1 Case in point: At the time of this writing a certain eBay seller has DVDs of the Masters of Cinema series edition of The Burmese Harp listed at a whopping 381 pounds sterling – more than $600! It’s an exceptional release of an exceptional film, to be sure, but that level of faux-crisis price fixing is shear insanity.
2 Emphasis mine.
Film: Excellent Video: Excellent Audio: Excellent Supplements: Excellent
Harrumphs: None.
Packaging: Standard Blu-ray case, 28-page booklet.
Final Words: Everyone has there favorite director, but for me there’s nothing quite like the K. Kurosawa touch. Tokyo Sonata is brilliant filmmaking through and through, and easily the director’s most accessible film to date. There’s nothing at all wrong with the Masters of Cinema series Blu-ray edition of this title, except perhaps that you don’t own it. A must have!
