Tokyo Godfathers (2003)
A perfect full circle Christmas story.
Presentation:
The context of the movie is Christmas time, but as the film takes place in Japan up to New Years, it doesnโt have the traditional Christmas experience audiences in the west would imagine. The story follows three homeless people that discover a baby and try to take care of it. What ensues is comedic mayhem, covering all of their backstories and coming back full circle with Japanese sensibilities reminiscent of Dark Souls level design. No arc feels wasted and are always relevant and connected to each other. The presentation feels a bit outdated, which feels like it was made much earlier than 2003. But the focus really is on the story, which is one of the neatest designed scripts resembling that of Stephen Kingโs Shawshank Redemption.
Conclusion:
This is objectively a good script, that in some ways is too perfect and neat. This kind of storytelling feels stiff, un-organic and artificial to me, but most audiences shouldnโt feel this way. Itโs not really a family film and should be for adults, evident by the adult language and fighting. This makes it less wholesome, which is a weird balance for what is at its core a heartwarming story, which tries a bit too hard to be categorized as a family film. But it might make all the adults in the room laugh anyway.
Recommendations
A perfect full circle Christmas story.