Tokyo Godfathers

This is a great movie. And since the movies about homeless people can be counted on one hand a unique one on top of that.

God, what an utter wonder. So brisk, and yet the characters are so well drawn. Every frame is infused with character. It’s the best kind of fairy tale, infused with humanity and reality at its heart, not sugarcoating the way things are but not hiding the best of what it can be either. It made me laugh, it made me aww happily, and it made me happy cry twice over. This is a Christmas standard in my book.

[8.7/10] Divine providence is a lovely idea, and also the death of storytelling. There is something undeniably comforting in the idea that someone is looking out for you, and everything that's happened, good or bad, is happening for a reason, especially around the holidays. And yet, the heart of storytelling is characters making choices and facing the consequences of them. A divine finger on the scale ought to rob those choices of their impact, both narratively and emotionally.

Only, in a movie like *Tokyo Godfathers*, it’s the exact opposite. The film features myriad coincidences. Children seem all but fated to run into their parents, be they police inspectors, drag queens, or homeless “geezers”. Milk and other infant necessities appear as if by tragedy-ridden magic when scavenging offerings in a cemetery. Disputes over who can sit in a shop window become cosmically moot when two poor souls are forced to vacate, only for an ambulance to come crashing through right where they were sitting moments earlier. In lesser hands, this could all seem too easy.

But nothing comes easy to Gin. Hana, or Miyuki. The three homeless protagonists of the film strive and they suffer. They earn their moments of grace through acts of selflessness that come hard and harrying. They are flawed and messy, in the way that real people are (albeit in a heightened fashion), but they’re also each wounded and sympathetic in their own ways, which makes it easy to root for them when they’re fighting their own demons and trying to do the right thing. And it makes it easy to cheer when they get a little help along the way.

What good fortune the three poor souls get is more of a nudge in the right direction, a little piece of luck, instead of any sort of deus ex machina. Gin still shows kindness to a fellow man fallen on hard times. Hana still swallows her pride and returns to her home when it can provide little Kiyoko with shelter. And Miyuki still tries to save a woman’s life -- twice! The heavenly kindnesses they receive spare them, but don’t save them. It takes their own choices, their own courage and altruism to do that, to where you don’t mind when they get a little help.

And they need a little help. One of the strangely refreshing things about *Tokyo Godfathers* is that most of its characters aren’t immediately likable. Gin’s a drunk and a grump. Hana is overdramatic and sometimes has her head in the clouds. Miyuki is a little temperamental and a bit of a brat. They snipe and grouse at each other. They struggle to control their tempers. They fuss and fight with one another and with many, if not most, of the people who cross their paths. They are, in a word, problematic.

But ultimately, each is also sympathetic. All three of them come with a certain baggage, something they’re overcoming, that helps explain their dysfunctions and makes it extra rousing when they’re able to overcome it, if only a little at a time. And most of it comes down to a separation between parents and children.

That is the not-so-subtle motif running through *Tokyo Godfathers*. Gin became estranged from his wife and daughter when his gambling debts caught up with him, and he still dreams of seeing his little girl one last time. Hana has parental abandonment issues, is implied to have bounced around foster homes, and felt like she couldn't return to her surrogate mother either. And Miyuki ran away from home after stabbing her father over a missing cat. That sense of alienation, of longing for a parent-child connection they’re each bereft of, is a persistent undercurrent of the film.

It’s also cause for them to project all of their issues onto Kiyoko, the baby they find abandoned in a pile of garbage. Each sees an echo of their past in the infant, a chance to undo past mistakes, give the little girl the life they never had, or wished they could give to their own child. Their mission, to return this child to its mother, is both a quixotic quest and journey of personal healing, an effort to spiritually fix what ails each of them, in the guise of this mission of mercy.

And somehow, the tale of three cantankerous, destitute people running all over tarnation trying to get a baby back to the mother that abandoned it is subtly hilarious. Don’t get me wrong, it’s harrowing at times. But there’s this wry, cosmic humor to moments like a dying old man asking for repeated last requests, or Gin unlocking a decaying detached doorway before it collapses behind him after a beat, or Hana bantering with the beleaguered cab driver who’s helped her over the course of this bonkers night.

For as wild and occasionally pathos-ridden as the film is, there are also a surfeit of laughs that come from a knowing place. The sardonic humor comes from that sense of the ironic or surprising tangles of humanity put on display, to where you can't help but look up at the stars, shake your head, and chuckle, if only so you don’t lose your mind.

In a way, that's what elevates *Tokyo Godfathers*. As much as there’s an almost clockwork sense of our three heroes being inexorably drawn to their fates, it is an undeniably shaggy film. What stops it from feeling like an extended case of wheel-spinning, though, is that there’s a profound sense of humanity, of recognizable character, even in the film’s most slack and elliptical moments.

My favorite scene in the whole film may be Miyuki bonding with a young Latina mother who nurses Kiyoko. In a movie about overcoming alienation and exclusion, it is a reminder of the common bonds that cut across differences in language and culture, the central parts of our experiences that are, in a sense, universal. There’s plenty of moments like that, that don’t necessarily add to the plot in any particular way. But they deepen our appreciation for these characters and in between their larger than life stretches, give us a glimpse at their essential humanity.

It dovetails nicely with the expressive animation. In truth, many of the character designs here are rather unsightly. But there is a fluidity to the characters’ movements, a level of detail and personality in their expressions, and a lived-in grubbiness to their world that captures the spirit of something real in *Tokyo Godfathers* visuals even as they present a heightened reality. Alongside the stunning cityscapes and flashes of a television’s glow on a pair of derelict fathers, the film catches your eye at the same time it’s burrowing into your heart.

That helps the medicine go down with this wild and wooly story. As freewheeling as *Tokyo Godfathers* is, it’s united by a (seemingly) simple goal: care for this baby and return it to its mother. That this ostensibly clear objective leads our heroes into snarls and misadventures with mob bosses, twisty mysteries, daring car chases, chance encounters with long lost friends and enemies, and nigh-constant separations and reunions. There is a kitchen sink quality to the film, to where a “throw it in” mentality means a would-be straightforward journey comes to encompass an entire city, and an adventure that quickly seems to spin out of control.

In a way, that makes it all the more satisfying when everything comes together. That requires a few of those divine nudges. Hana reunites with her “mother” when she sacrifices her dignity in a moment of need. Gin reunites with his long lost daughter when, in a peculiar way, he gives her the money he’s been saving for her in order to save his friend. After a long night of selfless altruism and missed connections, Miyuki runs into her father again, with an implied happy ending.

More than that, though, there’s a profound sense that our three unlikely heroes were destined for all of this. *Tokyo Godfathers* pulls off a remarkable magic trick where, for as outlandish and seemingly random as its various sidequests and bumps in the road are, everything comes together in the kinetic and moving final set piece.

The cab driver returns at an opportune moment. Gin proves himself the bicycle racer and action star he claimed and disclaimed himself as. Miyuki is there to help a suicidal woman who lost a child of her own see the transcendent need for a prodigal child to be able to return home. Are there coincidences? Undoubtedly. Do many of these moments loom larger than life? Certainly. But do three people the world has cast aside, or who’ve cast themselves aside, show remarkable tenacity, kindness, and determination? Absolutely yes, in a way that makes you feel like someone knew they needed to be right where they ended up, to save a life and reunite more than one family.

And then, in one of those movie moments of dangling over the side of a building that makes your heart catch in your throat, Hana does the unthinkable. She puts her own life at tremendous risk in an attempt to save this innocent child. The filmmakers toy with your emotions, with plenty of false starts and feints that veer between temporary security and abundant danger. There is a grim irony to the fact that it is Hana, the one who preached that Baby Kiyoko was under Heaven’s protection despite being abandoned, who seems like she’s going to perish with the child she always dreamed of cradled in her arms. It is a piercing, poetic tragedy in motion.

Only then, the wind blows. The music stops. A strong gust filling the sails of the banner Hana’s grabbed hold of turns a deadly plummet into a gentle descent. Death turns to rebirth. Sacrifice turns to reward. Peril turns to providence. And I teared up. What can you say, Hana? Somebody up there likes you.

That's the dream, isn’t it? That's the true hope of what the holiday season represents for all lost souls. For all your suffering, for all your flaws, some spiritual presence knows where you're meant to be, and is working to get you there in ways big and small. It’s a lovely sentiment, and an animating ethos for the ragged comforts of stories like *Tokyo Godfathers*, even when the real world often struggles to live up to that hope.

In the opening sermon that Gin and Hana endure to get their supper, a minister proclaims that the infant savior who spurred the religious roots of the holiday was “born to offer those alone a place in which to be alive.” *Tokyo Godfathers* is a film devoted to the lost souls. It shows them worthy, not only of rescuing another child seemingly marked by Heaven, but of reunion and redemption. And it suggests that on the cusp of a new year, even three of God’s erstwhile forgotten children, can be no less worthy of his gentle intervention, or his grace.

This movie is amazing in almost every way. It takes one of the most depressing sounding premises imaginable - 3 homeless people find a baby in a dumpster around Christmas - and makes it ridiculously funny, touching, and just damn good. One of my forever favs.

Satoshi Kon... I can't even describe how much I love you. You don't only make amazing bizarre movies, but also perfect comedies.

This movie is everything that you need: an unique and excelent argument, really good characters, comedy that works perfectly and knows where to act and where to hide, some amazing shots and animation...

You have no idea what you're going to find when you start Tokyo Godfathers, and that's precisely part of its magic. What at first seems like a crude story about homeless people soon turns into a whirlwind of unexpected situations, impossible twists and moments that are as touching as they are hilarious. It's one of those movies that keeps you hooked because you never know what's going to happen next.

The animation is spectacular, especially considering it's from 2003. Not only has it aged well, but it still looks better than many current productions. But what really makes the film shine is its fast pace and humor. It's been a long time since a movie has made me laugh so hard.

After watching it, it's clear to me that it has earned a place among my Christmas classics. It's exciting, funny and has a huge heart. If you haven't seen it yet, you are late.

One of the best Christmas movies of all time? It certainly has to be in the conversation if we’re ignoring non-traditional picks like _Die Hard_. The very well defined & unusual characters combined with the emotional story make this an absolute winner. It might seem like a formulaic plot at the beginning, but this film is an unpredictable rollercoaster once it gets going. The sound and visuals perfectly capture the vibe for what’s needed here, it’s heartwarming without overdosing on sugar. This tone is pulled off little less successfully with the writing as the heavy, sad moments don’t mix all that well with the broad comedic style. The theme of coincidence that the film’s dealing with also leads to some plot developments that can feel forced or contrived. Still, I expect this one to attain the status of a Christmas classic as more and more people discover it. Most of the elements really work here and it’s quite accessible compared to Kon’s more conceptual work (_Paprika, Perfect Blue_).

7.5/10

The film shows the dark side of Tokyo, the most degrading side, where everyone knows it exists but no one makes any effort to change that.

With a light and comical story, but at the same time hard for the message it wants to convey, Tokyo Godfathers tells us about how difficult the life of the lowest social stratum is, that is the homeless.

I'm not a fan of Christmas fairy tales, the magic that happens on this day and the incredible coincidences; in fact, the miracle present in the finale left me a little bitter in the mouth. However, it remains a beautiful film, a denunciation of Japanese society and that shows the West that Japan is not as perfect as we think.

7.5/10

A heartwarming Christmas movie. Almost impossible not to love these 3 wacky and witty homeless characters who are wrapped in a crazy story. What a ride. And don't forget, folks... Eventually it's all about miracles. No matter if they are smaller or bigger.

Certainly a different sort of Christmas film, but an enjoyable one nonetheless. While anime art styles will turn some people off, this one is worth experiencing.

Rating: 3.5/5 - 80% - Would Recommend