User reviews

Having enjoyed greatly many of Isabel Coixet's movies (notably "Things I never told you" and "The secret life of words") I must say I was quite disappointed by this last movie.

It is difficult to point out what fails in this movie, but I certainly did not connect at all with its characters and situations. The movie is set in Tokyo, but contrary to "Lost in translation" here the movie tries to build half on Japanese characters and half on western ones, which really demands a deeper knowledge about japan. It is difficult for me to believe the Japanese part of the movie, first of all they all seem to speak very good English, which is, at least, difficult to believe, e.g. why would the Japanese girl, played by Kinko Rikuchi, speak good English at all?, why is the other guy working with the Spanish seller almost American? Must say maybe I am biased by my own experience with the Japanese people I met in japan, but certainly communication is in general much tougher than what Isabel portraits here.

Of course all the visual and sound stuff is really good, beautiful takes, nice sounds etc, but the story really does not make any sense to me from the beginning to the end. As the movie develops I got mostly bored, the sex scenes seem empty, repetitive and with no special purpose.

We do not get enough info to actually feel anything for any character, starting from the friendship between the guy recording sounds and the girl and ending by the business-man and his daughter. Everything seems fake to some extend and the whole story really appears to be built to serve as an excuse to go to Tokyo and enjoy the visual landscapes of the city (maybe just a documentary about the fish market would suffice).

Sadly, I must say I got nothing of what I was expecting: neither a nice insight into Japan, nor a situation I could connect with. I certainly would prefer to watch "Lost in Translation", read Amelie Nothomb or watch a good documentary about japan to see beautiful takes of the country, instead of spending two precious hours at the cinema.

In any case, I hope I ll enjoy better the next one from Coixet! (and I ll certainly keep enjoying Japanese food meanwhile)

Well, I went to see this movie yesterday and it was not what I was expecting. Does that means it was worse than I imagined? At all, it just means it was different.

Coixet portrays a different perspective of Tokyo where the city becomes just an excuse to show the loneliness of its two protagonists, who are literally lost in a decaying world and don't know how to get out of it. Ryu, the Japanese girl, is an assassin who gets paid for its job, and David is an Spanish living in Tokyo, who has lost his wife recently and feels his life has nothing but emptiness. Both found themselves alone and feel they need each other, but things are not easy and there are some scars that will never be healed.

This is NOT "Lost in Translation" and this is NOT about Tokyo but about human feelings. If you want to see a more realistic movie about Japanese culture and you think you might like this movie because you're a fan of everything related to it, you might be very disappointed. If you go there with no expectations and you just want to get immersed by its story, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

That being said, it contains very explicit sex scenes, so be careful little children. I don't think it's a movie any kid would like to see or appreciate, anyways.

A dramatic thriller that centers on a fish-market employee (Rinko Kikuchi) who doubles as a contract killer . She is a tough murderer who's hired by a powerful businessman as an assassin to kill a Spaniard (Sergi Lopez) owner of a winery in Tokyo whom he blames for the suicide of his daughter. Concerning the problematic existences of two particular roles played by Rinko Kikuchi and Sergi López , as their lives are intersected and both of them will change in unexpected consequences and unpredictable ways.

Isabel Coixet is in love with contemporary Japanese culture as evidenced by this outlandish film in which she reflects a lot on Japanese customs. The film gives a wide vision of today's Tokyo, the bustling streets, the peculiar hotels , the noisy markets , the popular karaokes and at the same time reflecting the solitude of the big metropolis. Isabel Coixet's infatuation with Japanese culture is well attested to the fact that she called her film production ¨Miss Wasabi Films¨. On a visit to a fish market while promoting "The Secret Life of Words" in the Land of the Rising Sun, the Barcelona filmmaker was inspired and decided to pay off her outstanding debt to Japan by shooting this sui generis film , which, although it is shot in Tokyo, maintains her intimate and special trademarks . In addition , she had two great actors : Rinko Kikuchi (nominated an Academy Award for Babel) as an assassin who's is hired by an avenger old man to kill and Sergi López as an unfortunate entrepreneur in Tokyo , both of whom monopolize practically all the footage of the film. As the picture relies heavily on the outlandish relationship between the two awesome protagonists : Rinko Kikuchi and Sergi López giving nice acting , including some strong erotic scenes among them . Despite being nominated for the Goya for best sound and Golden Palm at Cannes , and taking the technical prize in this Festival , the film failed at the box offic . The artistic and technician section were the facets praised by critics , who almost unanimously described it as cold and full of the usual cliches of Coixet's cinema.

The motion picture was leisurely , slowly directed by the Spanish Isabel Coixet , shooting in his ordinary feeling style , such as : A los que aman , Another me, The secret life of words, Things I never told you, Elisa and Mariela, Endless night, The bookshop, his biggest hits were Another me and Elegy with Ben Kingsley. . She is a good professional, a fine craftsman who has directed enjoyable and thoughful films . She often is the camera operator of her movies and founded her own production company, Miss Wasabi Films, in 2000 and was member of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival in 2009 . Her interesting filmography includes other feature films , such as : 'Cosas que nunca te dije' (Things I Never Told You) (1995), Elegy (2008), 'Mapa de los sonidos de Tokio' (Map of the Sounds of Tokyo) (2009), and the latest 'Ayer no termina nunca' (Yesterday Never Ends) (2013) besides documentary films, shorts and commercials , such as Proyecto tiempo, El espiritu de la pintura, Sea Aral, Marlango, Marea blanca, Spain in a day and a segment of Paris Je taime , among others. Map of the sounds of Tokyo rating 6/10. Well worth seeing , but only for Isabel Coixet followers .

'Map of the Sounds of Tokyo' is no Thriller. It's more of a slow drama centering on the young Ryu, that lives a lonely and silent life in the chaos of Tokyo. She spends her nights working on a fish market while from time to time hanging out with another lonely old guy. Her routine is only broken by the casual killings that she performs, though those things never become the center of the story.

Parallel to Ryu we see how the suicide of some girl in the town leaves her father grieving and broken, which is why his subordinate orders Ryu to kill the dead girl's boyfriend David from Spain.

In slow pictures we follow all those connected persons through their daily lives dealing with loneliness and grief. We often hear only the sounds of the city and silence from the protagonists, which helps to understand how lost they all are in this big world. You will not find the good or the bad guy in this piece. Most of the times the atmosphere is rather depressing with only a few glimpses of sunshine here and there, especially when Asian and European culture are opposing each other. I would compare the general feeling and vibe of the movie with Amélie, though the latter one leaves you at least with a smile and some hope at the end.

For me, the key to the movie seems to be that no matter where you are from or what you are doing for a living, we all want and need another person in our life. And also how easy it is to be alone in such a big city full of people like Toyko. And while I like the movie's depth and slowness, it is kind of hard to connect with any of the protagonists. No one is really likable and often they seem so passive about their situations.

Just how life, the movie is not perfect. But it may help you to slow down in this fast and loud world for a little time to value the people around you.

What can I say? The movie did not live up to the promise of its opening scene. It's well-shot and nicely lit, with a few postcard-perfect views of Tokyo, but the story makes no sense, the characters are poorly written, and Sergi Lopez is horribly miscast as the male lead. The ending is a formulaic cop-out.

The trailer tries to sell the movie as a sex thriller, which it's most decidedly not. It's a tale of two lost souls in a big city who try to find solace in each other, but fail, for various reasons.

Rinko Kikuchi performs well as a quiet fish market worker who moonlights as a paid assassin, but her character remains an enigma throughout the movie, which makes it difficult for the audience to connect or empathize with her. She bares her body more than once in fairly explicit sex scenes - and what a nice body it is - one only wishes the director could give us similar insight into her soul.

Sergi Lopez does his usual macho strut with a hint of menace which might have worked in a different movie, but feels utterly out of place in an upscale wine merchant from modern-day Tokyo. He is very unconvincing as Rinko's love interest, and is further hindered by his corpulent, scary hairy physique and significant age difference with his co-star. I could not for the life of me believe in chemistry between the two of them.

The omnipresent narrator, an older sound engineer who maintains chaste friendship with Rinko's character and gives the movie its title, is the most sympathetic of all, but he is more of a convenient voice-over device than a fully-fleshed character. Other parts are one-dimensional at best.

Recommended only for indiscriminate art-house fans, Japan fetishists, and furries.

I am making a habit of liking films like this. I fondly recall ignoring the pitiful attempts at action in Jean Delannoy's Macao, l'enfer du jeu (1942) and revelling in the unusual intergenerational love scenes between Mireille Balin and Erich von Stroheim. 2009 saw other unloved unfocused occidental-oriental concoctions, such as Ming-liang's Visage (also at Cannes with this movie), and Tran Anh Hung's I Come With The Rain, both of which I adore. Whilst many look for perfection in films I am looking to fall in love with a movie. In real life when you fall in love with someone you surrender to their flaws because you see something sympathetic about them, you admire their courage in making themselves vulnerable to you. This movie makes no pretence of perfect love, Ryu and David are like the frequently pictured learner drivers at the test centre, stuttering along hesitantly. Love is very difficult, men and women are so different, so painfully ignorant of each others' ways, show me perfect lovers, I'll show you folie à deux.

Yes, as with Delannoy, the action here, or attempts at it, are fairly risible, but they are also besides the point, Map Of The Sounds of Tokyo is about two unhappy people finding oblivion in a sexy hotel room modelled on a metro carriage. In my opinion it is a story worth knowing. My final comment is that there has been talk here that Sergi López was not up to a romantic lead in this movie, also that the film is not realistic as regards Tokyo. One point of contemporary earthy realism that those commentators miss is that Western men punch above their weight in Tokyo due to their relative lack of timidity.

Do not punish this movie for failing to keep up the pretence of genre, embrace it.

Well, what can I say? I am Spanish and I am a little familiarized with Japan and Japanese culture, my girlfriend is a Japanese girl living in Tokyo and I have visited the city. In my humble opinion, the portrait of Tokyo in this movie could be one of its limited virtues because at least is trying to show a different point of view focused not only on the typical tourist pictures but also on some not so glamorous places as small restaurants of ramen, a cemetery or a market for selling fish. Soundtrack is interesting and well chosen too, and nothing to complain about photography of the French Jean-Claude Larrieu. About Isabel Coixet, her work as a director is competent and even it has a "touch" more Japanese than Spanish (more concentrated on the silences or natural sounds than the dialogs or artificial noises, for example).

Until here the positive. Now the not so positive, always in my opinion. First, the story. A professional killer falling in love with his (her) victim and breaking his (her) own rules with bad consequences. How many times we have watched this kind of story in a movie? Too many times, I think. Second (and specially), the main actor. Sergi López. He is a respected actor here in Spain, but sorry, to choose him as the man able to light some fire in the cold heart of Ryu is one of the biggest mistakes I have seen in a casting for a movie. Sergi López, let's be honest, is not tall, not sophisticated, too old for Ryu and also scandalously fat for this kind of character. He is not charming, his face is the face of a farmer or a boxer and his voice is annoying in its vulgarity.

Again, sorry Sergi López, but nobody can believe that a very young Japanese girl can kill herself because of you, and also another young girl can fall in love with you until the extreme to risk her own life. Everything in only one month. Wow, are you some kind of Spanish chubby Bond with a special skill for melting Japanese girls? Isabel Coixet is a woman, and it's supposed a clever one. Does she believe the script? I don't believe it! And sorry sorry, even I can't believe López managing a wine shop for gourmet clients in Tokyo.

Simply beautiful. Painstakingly pictured. Full of layers of imagery and sound. The visions and sounds themselves are heart stopping. The strong female lead Ryu, played by Rinko Kikuchi, is stunning and heartbreaking. People overlook how rare it is to have a strong unusual female lead like this in any movie. The drama unfolds delicately, each scene a piece of art that draws you into its suspense and passion. The story is sad but not contrived; the writing is poetry. Writer and director Isabel Coixet's unique artistic view gives fresh color to each scene. Map of the Sounds of Tokyo isn't a cliché about different cultures or living abroad, it is simply a good story filmed like a movie should be.

I knew nothing about this film or the director and thus had no expectations. I liked the film's title and the opening scene was very striking. I found the story to be a bit convoluted but was very drawn in by the main character, Ryu and her interactions with the two men in her life, one an enigmatic sound recordist and the other, the Spaniard who was the lover of the woman who killed herself and the man that Ryu is supposed to assassinate. She doesn't reveal herself to either man though both ask her to. So we also have no idea who she really is and why she does what she does. This mystery is part of the genre and as such, I accept it. It makes her all the more vulnerable as she begins to blossom through love's power.

One of less warmly received movies at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival seems to have gotten into competition more on the basis of the director Isabel Coixet's credentials, than actual quality. More or less openly inspired by "Lost in Translation" this Spanish production garnishes a more ambitious route suggesting inner knowledge on Tokio reality, not using it as a symbolic vessel of detachment, but as a well-treaded path following a recognisable motif of a would-be assassin, who falls in love with her prey.

By day a physical labourer on the fish market, by night a contract-killer Ryu (Rinko Kikuchi) is hired out by Japanese CEO Nagara (Takeo Nakahara) to avenge the suicide of his daughter, driven apparently to the brink by a failed love affair (the specific nature of this fall-out is never revealed). The target is Spanish wine-seller David (Sergi López), a slightly overweight love-machine with animal magnetism distraught by the suicide and contemplating the same fate. During research Ryu compulsively happens to chance a short affair with the hapless foreigner, a serious breach of contract...

Told with fluid imagery filled less with noise of Tokio, but more of Japanese renditions of Eastern hits, including a pretty awful karaoke attempt at Depeche Mode by the uninspirational Sergi Lopez. At times sensual Coixet entices with nicely shot frames and lingering emotions, but the unfortunate reality is that the fleeting story of "Map of the Sounds of Tokyo" is a muddled collage of beautiful visuals, which make nice eye candy, but a forgettable movie. Nonetheless the invitation to entertain in the less frequented areas of Japanese movies, like the fish market or the automated hotels, does offer gratification, albeit scarcely sufficient to supplement the plot.

The slowly drifting story also falls into the pitfall of English language usage, as both Kikuchi and Lopez struggle to sell the part, when forced into unfamiliar language territory, given an off-key performance, which creates an awkward distance and ambivalence to the characters as well as dissolves the mood and focus set out by the carefully constructed layers of imagery focusing the mood.

Performance-wise the strongest input is guaranteed by older-timer Nakahara, who given the limited screen-time inputs an unwavering presence, while the opening scene at a sushi restaurant is one of the sole reasons why the picture is actually worth a watch. It essentially also lays out the underlying premise - people come to Japan to input their projections of how the country looks, while Japanese in an attempt to be good hosts adhere to their expectations. Unfortunately Coixet fails to listen to her own advice.

In brief, Map of the Sounds of Tokyo is a beautifully shot, poignant drama, elevated by a profoundly melancholic script, superb acting and a moving soundtrack, which all comes together to make for a genuinely touching feature.

Expanding on this, Isabel Coixet's work could be accused of being 'arty', though is probably about as close to a Wong Kar Wai movie as any filmmaker could get, with a deep feeling of hopelessness - in the best possible way; sometimes hopelessly romantic, other times hopelessly tragic, the film does this all whilst building a bridge between cultures to reveal the interconnectedness between people of varying backgrounds.

In a film with the word 'sound' in its title, it's amazing how there are many instances where characters say very little, their expressions however speaking volumes. No word is ever wasted in the almost poetic script, particularly in its portrayal of narration by Narrador (Min Tanaka), who helps to say what other characters may not, whilst also giving the film a voyeuristic quality, as he records the lives of those around him. His often touching dialogue is truly memorable.

It is Rinko Kikuchi's portrayal of Ryu however, that is at the forefront of this feature. She is an outsider who has a profound understanding of others; someone who is blunt and to the point, but also gentle; as fearless as she is strong, yet also vulnerable, all of which makes for a very endearing character. She works nights at a fish market, while moonlighting as an assassin. Despite Ryu's trade, there is very little violence in the film, Coixet instead exploring the feelings of guilt exhibited by those that survive the victims.

One such person is David (Sergi Lopez), a Spaniard who moved to Japan because of the adoration he feels towards the country. Having recently lost his girlfriend, Midori, to a suicide, he is forced to contend with the loneliness his girlfriend's absence has over him, while trying to rationalise what led to the tragedy. Coixet never provides a definite reason for Midori's death, instead leaving it to the likes of other characters, including David's close friend and business partner, Yoshi (Manabu Oshio) to provide their interpretations.

As Midori's father, Nagara (Takeo Nakahara) succumbs to inconsolable grief, his business partner Ishida (Hideo Sakaki) seeks the services of Ryu to provide Nagara with a sense of atonement, neither man able to accept that David lives while Midori does not. After taking the contract, Ryu finds herself inexplicably drawn to David, these two characters, both of whom are emotionally scarred, needing each other like air or water. Unable to perform the assassination she was hired for, Ryu becomes the meat in the sandwich, having to protect David from Ishida.

Though the film has been described as an 'erotic thriller', the few sensual scenes, that show a nipple or two, and allude to cunnilingus, never become gratuitous, adding to the film's emphasis on recording the interactions between people. The film makes it seem like we, the audience, are witnessing many secrets, the feature eroding the privacy of its leads and capturing the many facets of a character's soul, and how they all behave differently around others.

The film's direction and costuming again, bears similarity to a Wong Kar Wai product, in that actors are often framed, with the use of high key lighting, to make them appear at their most beautiful, especially when Kikuchi is on screen, her physical beauty contrasting magnificently with her character's darkness.

The use of soundtrack further elevates the scenes, by magnifying the weight of what characters are feeling. Other times, it triumphantly adds tension, one such example being a tune reminiscent of a rattle snake's tail when Ryu confronts her obligation to complete her contract. This is also true in scenes with the absence of sound, or scenes where sounds from one location creep through into another (example, the diegetic sounds of a cemetery played non-diegetically during an aerial shot of the city), which speak to the way character's feel about a person or place, these 'sounds' sometimes saying more than a character might.

Coixet brilliantly weaves mystery into her film, making us, the viewer, question if we ever really know a person, even after being privy to their secrets. Although Map of the Sounds of Tokyo will not be for everyone, for viewers who love a character drama, or a journey into character's deepest fantasies and feelings, this film is simply a must, and is one mystery that is very easy to return to.

Looking for a list of the soundtrack music played in this film. Can't seem to find much, except that many viewers enjoyed the music as much as I did.

Hope someone is able to post a list of the music, and maybe even where a soundtrack might be purchased. Have seen this film more than once, and still continue to enjoy it!

Watching it each time brings back a lot of good memories of the sights, sounds, and smells of Japan, and the many good friends I came to know. My life continues to be influenced by the impressions the Japanese culture had on me. I also enjoyed the film "Norwegian Wood"!

This had all the credentials to be a memorable film experience.

It's by a Spanish woman who films in Tokyo attempting to have something revealed about women and the erotic mystery, and she is from the most architecturally musical city of Spain, Barcelona. So you'd expect her to have sensitive insights, to be sensitive to place, and for these to be somehow amalgamated into visual music about the yearnings.

Our entry is an inscrutability about women. Why did the ex-girlfriend commit suicide? What lurks behind the silent exterior of the girl who works nights at the fishmarket? A Spanish man has touched both.

So she (the filmmaker) puts inscrutable women at the center, one of them dead, the other an idealized cipher, the dark-haired sullen girl from manga who quietly yearns and destroys herself. She creates an affair that amounts to merely sex, fantasy and waiting for a truth that never comes, the man is just not worth her love, and yet ends it with sacrifice. So poetry about falling for a man who has nothing to give back and being cut deeply when he leaves, a complete tragedy of misspent emotion.

It has some evocative images, it seems you can point a camera anywhere in Tokyo and capture a mood, but it's all stickied to the film like polaroids on a photoalbum, a superficial loneliness to carry back home from the visit; the noodle bar with steam rising from pots, the empty karaoke bar, neon streets and fissures. So much opportunity missed to mingle with things.

So the film here in the same swoop fails to intimately know Japan, fails to know more than heartbreak, and fails to capture a fundamental mystery about touch. It may be that this woman has just not known love or was deeply hurt when she tried and still thinks it was her fault.

Isabel Coixet is a director I always liked since I saw My Life Without Me (2003)a few years back. Since then I tried to see the rest of her films.

This one just like Elegy (2008), seems to be Coixets attempt at becoming a more mainstream director, a bankable director able to do genre films.

However, Coixet seems very unfamiliar with genrefilmmaking and this film is very flawed, lacks focus and also brings almost nothing new the thriller genre.

Coxiet dramathriller about a Japanese girl who works at the fishmarket and also doubles as an assassin is basically your average story about a lonely assassin doing his/her job without emotion until one day....

Coixet tries to fill this tired, cliché ridden subgenre with filmpoetry, beautiful visuals, odd script and different approach but somewhere leaves the viewer with feeling that she knows almost nothing about this subgenre.

Experimenting with genres, mixing style and content in order to do something new and still stick to genretraditions is one hard thing to do.

Coixet doesn't handle this well, but there are good things to say about Rinko Kikuchis fishmarket girl, Sergi Lópezs wine merchant etc. Coixet has always been good directing actors and once again we get a film full of wonderful performances.

Had Coixet seen Le samouraï (1967), Xich lo/Cyclo (1995), Seom/The Isle (2000)etc we would have probably seen a different film altogether, instead of this flawed film.

However, see this film regardless of what the critics say, it has very nice performances, visuals etc.

And maybe next time Coixet will make a better genrefilm.

it is a kind of song. not very inspired, with to much ambitions but seductive only for the performance of Min Tanaka.a film about love, life and searches. its sin - desire to present all. usual good intentions, the need to impress. so, different pieces from different puzzles are mixed in a game almost without rules. poetry and sex, revenge and nostalgic crumbs, Japanese ingredients and American indie.memories from many other movies about same subject. that is all. the work of director, the fragile force of Rinko Kikuchi are admirable but not adapted to theme. and Sergi Lopez is the worst option. than - fake dialogs who must create special atmosphere but sounds as old sticks on marble floor.a web. improvised.