Friday, January 21, 2011
One Wild Christmas Eve (Tokyo Godfathers)
Movie marathons have always been a part of my Christmas break activities. This past holiday season I had loads to watch but only a few of them really did stood out. Among these was the anime movie Tokyo Godfathers. For certain reasons - It was Satoshi Kon's (Paprika, Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress) masterpiece, one of the best he was known for, and it was very timely (I had no idea at that time). The entire story happened on one Christmas Eve, the same time I watched the movie.
Tokyo Godfathers poster. The tagline: "Meet the ultimate dysfunctional family." Well, it's not that dysfunctional I think. Having a drag queen as your mother, a middle-aged hobo as your old man and a tomboyish runaway girl as your sister ain't that bad right?
Tokyo Godfathers tells the story of three homeless people and their one-of-a-kind Christmas Eve meeting with a lost angel. Surely, one could say the worst Holidays are possibly those of the homeless. They barely have anything and probably won't be receiving anything but to Gin, Hana and Miyuki, this Christmas Eve was the beginning of something life-changing and something they would never forget for the rest of their lives.
Meet the terrific trio of Tokyo Godfathers: (left to right) Hana the drag queen, Miyuki the runaway and Gin the smelly hobo. It seems that teeth gaps are "in" for the middle-aged drifter.
One seemingly ordinary and boring normal Christmas eve for the homeless trio turns into something exceptional as Hana discovers an abandoned baby in a basket while rummaging for Miyuki's Christmas present in a pile of garbage. Along with it was a letter to the finder to take care of the baby, a locker key and some other clues to the parents' identity. Instantly delighted, Hana names the baby "Kiyoko" meaning "pure child", as she puts it, Christmas Eve is the purest night of the year. Although Hana wanted to keep the baby since according to her it was God's gift and it made her feel more like a woman and a mother, Gin and Miyuki thought it'd be best to bring it to the police for them to return the child to its real parents. Hana had no choice then but to agree with the two despite her desperate efforts to convince Gin and Miyuki. They then settled on looking for the baby's real parents on their own with the help of the clues the child came with. With that begins the wild adventure that would definitely touch and change lives of the three. A train of events that link to each one's dark past happen one after the other eventually leading to miracles, realization and resolutions.
Getting beaten up by street punks, Getting caught in a crossfire between Yakuza and a group of hispanic hitmen and going on a wild car chase with a coerced taxi driver and one bad mother, all for the sake of finding a lost child's parents. It just couldn't get any crazier than this.
Gin, Hana and Miyuki wwere surprised by a shrill cry coming from a heap of garbage. To their surprise they found an abandoned baby surrounded by piles of rubbish. Hana names her "Kiyoko" meaning "pure child" from the "purest of nights" which is Christmas eve - the night they found her. What they don't know is the string of strange yet beautiful events the child would bring to them.
Within the train of unlikely events, each of our three heroes/heroine/s had a confrontation with their past lives which led to their becoming homeless. Gin, our smelly hobo, claims to have been a bicycle racer but due to a series of unfortunate events which led to the death of his wife and child, again, as he claims to have happened, had since lost interest in life and became what he is.
Hana was led back to her old workplace - a night club. Apparently, he used to be a singer and entertainer in the club but due to the untimely and unlikely (slipping on a bar of soap) death of her boyfriend following her attacking a rude customer who called him an old geezer, he was left jobless and penniless and ended up on the streets. Crap, how many times did I mess up on the pronouns? LOL
Miyuki ran away from home after she had stabbed her father over a missing cat. Well, I guess it can't be helped. It did wonders for her weight though.
Gin, Hana and Miyuki stumbled upon and saved an old guy who was in danger of getting ran over by his own car. Now how did that happen? Turns out, the guy they saved was a Yakuza lord and wants to pay them back for owing his life. Luck or more trouble?
The movie packs some awesome action as well. Gin hangs on to his dear life while a stolen delivery truck driven by a baby thief tries to shake him off while Hana, Miyuki and a bewildered taxi driver who had no choice but to shut up and drive remained in pursuit.
Of course no movie would be perfect for me without all the humor. Gin lectures Miyuki (while beating the crap out of each other), kids should show some respect to elders. Miyuki stresses she's not a kid anymore then Gin grabs her by the chest and says: "With little things like these?" This plus the crazy situations and facial expressions really brings out one hell of a laughtrip.
I've seen Satoshi Kon's work before through Paprika but that was a long time ago and at that time I wasn't even the least bit interested in the real beauty in the art of movie-making but after watching this I felt I definitely have to watch Paprika again and the rest of Satoshi Kon-sensei's work. Tokyo Godfathers truly exemplified the reality of the hardships that lead to the loss of many important things in life. Despite the drama, it never failed to give me sudden bursts of laughter with such comic scenarios and faces and with an awesome storyline to boot. Truly the perfect combination of entertainment material I was looking for and it never failed to carry out its message of hope that even the lowliest of people can hope for miracles and change to happen.
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