Millennium Actress

PG

Released Sep 12, 2003

1h 27m

Drama

Fantasy

Anime

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93%

Tomatometer

58 Reviews

90%

Audience Score

10,000+ Ratings

In this animated movie, filmmaker Genya Tachibana begins work on a documentary about famed Japanese actress Chiyoko Fujiwara. Now well into old age, Chiyoko has become reclusive and shy about any publicity, but she eventually warms up to Tachibana and starts to relate her life story. As the decades pass, Chiyoko is transformed from a teen with big dreams into a full-blown celebrity, while her cinematic characters span various eras, from ancient Japan to the distant future.

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Critics Consensus

The story of an aging movie actress' complicated personal saga unfolds in this sophisticated anime film that deftly blurs memory and make-believe into a meditation on the nature of cinema itself.

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Nick Schager

Lessons of Darkness

The finest anime film I've ever seen.

Rated: A

May 4, 2005

Full Review

Marc Savlov

Austin Chronicle

Millennium Actress has more layers to it than the proverbial onion, but Kon's sure hand keeps things moving right along.

Rated: 3/5

Oct 27, 2003

Full Review

Jeff Shannon

Seattle Times

Given its complex array of fact, fiction, location, character and atmosphere, Millennium Actress is almost unimaginable in any other medium.

Rated: 3/4

Oct 17, 2003

Full Review

Douglas Davidson

Elements of Madness

... truth and fiction, time and memory, love and loss, all intermingle until the only way to get to the end of the story is not through the linear path but by jumping forward and backward and forward again as memory becomes the road we travel.

Mar 21, 2022

Full Review

Yago Paris

El antepenúltimo mohicano

[A] jewel of Japanese animation. [Full review in Spanish]

Rated: 5/5

Mar 4, 2021

Full Review

Matt Brunson

Film Frenzy

A haunting love story.

Rated: 3/4

Nov 30, 2019

Full Review

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Kyle M

An elegantly absorbing, comprehensibly surreal vision that depicts how an actor’s career seamlessly blends roles based on life’s trajectories as told in artistic transcendence, becoming a timeless animated classic albeit its flawed secondary purpose that may’ve served purposeful and humorous. (B+)

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

04/26/24

Full Review

Alec B

The narrative is both sentimental and abstract while offering a pretty effective overview of Japanese film history. Its far better than a traditional biopic would be.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

04/02/24

Full Review

Audience Member

I loved this movie as a teen, so today I re-watched it for the first time. Didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped. If it was a book, I'd say there's nothing keeping you turning the pages. The story is slow-paced and very bare-bones. The only things I like about it are the beautiful art and the blurring lines between fiction/reality or between different identities.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

01/17/23

Full Review

isla s

This is an intriguing anime film. Its not so much a film aimed at young kids and I liked the plot concept of travelling through different times in a persons life, to see what they saw and witness events first hand. I thought the old fashioned, video game type music played at times was somehow endearing - it has quite a strong sense of nostalgia. It's not as great as Tokyo Godfathers (it features the same director) but its certainly worth a watch regardless if your into anime films and so I would recommend it, yes.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Taylor L

Satoshi Kon brings his trademark blend of reality and fantasy to the premise of growth and memory, tracing the career and personal longing of an aging actress through a rich variety of settings and in particular reflecting on the relationships that audiences have with film. While Millennium Actress is a well-designed and creative film, interweaving the personal and professional experiences of a main character in a way that is both visually vibrant and narratively solid, it feels at time as if it casts too wide a net in its emotional range, hinging key moments on somewhat underdeveloped side character and introducing a range of potential themes only to let a couple feel unfinished. But at its core the film is still an emotionally charged take on emotional evolution, featuring a main character that has fixed upon a seemingly unreachable goal as her internal motivation before coming to terms with her own desires fueling the seemingly ill-fated search for a man she met decades ago, extracting the image of herself on the screen from her own aging self in the process. At a budget of only about $1.2m, it's a wonder that Kon was able to deliver not only visuals of this quality but an exceptional soundtrack to support it. I don't think it packs the whallop that Kon's other work does, but there's still plenty to recommend this work to even a casual viewer; the comic relief is used liberally and works surprisingly well. (3.5/5)

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

08/22/22

Full Review

Audience Member

Movies are made not only for writers and directors to express themselves, it also for audiences to see themselves in the shoes of the characters. There are countless times where I imagined myself playing that character from that movie. This is why I absolutely adored this blend of narration by Satoshi Kon. It's his 2nd movie, and I can see how masterful he is at mixing two different elements in such elegant and smooth way. The transition between scenes of different movies was phenomenal and dynamic. I love how the interviewer character changed himself into different characters and re-enact the scenes. It's exactly how movies are for audiences. The heartbreaking story of this movie was also investing. The symbol of the key and her unrelenting love got me pretty sad at the end. Overall, I absolutely enjoyed the eye-opening and beautiful storytelling. 8.5-9/10

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

02/06/23

Full Review

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Satoshi Kon

Director

Miyoko Shôji

Chiyoko Fujiwara (70's)

Mami Koyama

Chiyoko Fujiwara (20-40's)

Fumiko Orikasa

Chiyoko Fujiwara (10-20's)

Shôzô Iizuka

Genya Tachibana

Masaya Onosaka

Kyoji Ida

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Synopsis

In this animated movie, filmmaker Genya Tachibana begins work on a documentary about famed Japanese actress Chiyoko Fujiwara. Now well into old age, Chiyoko has become reclusive and shy about any publicity, but she eventually warms up to Tachibana and starts to relate her life story. As the decades pass, Chiyoko is transformed from a teen with big dreams into a full-blown celebrity, while her cinematic characters span various eras, from ancient Japan to the distant future.

Director: Satoshi Kon
Screenwriter: Satoshi Kon, Sadayuki Murai
Distributor: DreamWorks SKG
Production Co: Mad House Company Ltd.
Rating: PG (Brief Mild Language|Violence|Thematic Elements)
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Anime
Original Language: Japanese
Release Date (Theaters): Sep 12, 2003, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Jul 18, 2019
Box Office (Gross USA): $37.3K
Runtime: 1h 27m
Sound Mix: Dolby Digital
Aspect Ratio: Flat (1.85:1)

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