Let me start by saying that I really enjoyed this movie, but not quite enough to give it three-and-a-half stars. The additional half-star is because, as you'll notice if you read any of my Satoshi Kon reviews, I continue to praise his films for their thoughtful and mature approach to animation. In other words, an extra half-star for having what I think is the right idea about animation's potential as a serious and adult-oriented medium.

As for the movie: This is a very absorbing story about a retired actress who, over the course of a videotaped interview, reveals to her interviewers a myriad of secrets about her life and how it went hand-in-hand with her acting career. It would not do the film justice to say that she goes through a series of flashbacks, because it is often difficult to distinguish when she is experiencing a memory from her personal life and when she is recalling a segment of one of the movies she starred in. Additionally, the two men interviewing her "travel" with her into her memories and seem to experience and even interact with them firsthand.

If "Millennium Actress's" description worries you that it will be too similar to Satoshi Kon's other works, such as Perfect Blue or Paprika, I'd say don't worry about it. I was suspicious of this possibility when I rented it, but frankly, not only is the story completely unique, but the method in which it is told is unique, as well. Yes, there is a lot of story about an attractive, spirited young woman, and there are a lot of times when you find yourself lost between reality and imagination...but that's where the similarities end. It's one thing to say that Satoshi Kon has an obvious influence here, but another to say that he is directing several versions of the same story.

This is a simultaneously pleasant and exciting movie to watch. If I were you, the next time you find yourself relaxing on the couch with some time to spare and an imagination to satisfy, pop this one in and turn down the lights.

Wonderfully moving and breath-takingly told. I saw this one in a dinky theater around midnight and automatically fell in love with the main protangonist Chiyoko Fujiwara. Such an outstanding film...shameful that it wasn't nominated for an Oscar.

I had heard little about this movie apart from the fact that there's was a possible Oscar buzz growing around it in regard to this year's nominations.

Millennium Actress is a thinking movie and I think its greatest success is in telling its story in a different and interesting way. Chiyoko, the formerly-famous and now retired actress, tells us the story of her youth... of a young man she met briefly by chance, fell in love with and spent the rest of her life trying to find him again. What makes the story so engaging is that all of Chiyoko's movies get woven into her retelling of her story... not in a one-to-one relationship kind of way, but almost as if the key emotion of that moment in her life selects what movie and movie role she will appear. So for instance as she is verbally beaten down by another older actress, she appears to us as a physically beaten geisha under the glare of the head geisha... or as she pursues signs of her love across the country, she is a young medieval Japanese warrior racing along on horseback. You're never exactly sure where the real story ends and the fiction of the movie world begins.

Chiyoko is joined in her retelling by the filmmaker, Genya, who is a big, big fan of the actress and keeps inserting himself into the fiction in amusing roles... and his cameraman Ida, my favourite character, who provides a wonderful straight-man in the chaos.

An usual but very good film. Definitely worth checking out.