Have you ever felt like you spent your entire life searching for something that you will never see again? Chiyoko Fujiwara definitely spends eternity looking for the man that gave her the key to his heart.
At the beginning of the story, Japan was at war and anyone who opposed the war was sought after by military police. Chiyoko Fujiwara, the main character, at the time was a young and aspiring actress, who in the future will star in many films spanning thousands of years.
Millenium Actress
5 Stars
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One day she was walking down the street when a stranger bumps into her, he quickly apologizes and hurries off into the bushes. With police hot on his tail, Chiyoko lies and sends the police in a different direction. She then joins the stranger and offers him a safe hiding spot for the night. Chiyoko takes him to her family’s store and the two sit in the storage room and talk for just a bit. The only thing she learns of the stranger is he is a painter, he opposes the war and he has a key that is the most important thing he has.
The next day she is walking home thinking of the stranger in the storage room, once she arrives back at her house she notices the key in the snow by her porch. This frightens young Chiyoko so she scoops up the key and rushes to the store to find the police searching for the mysterious painter. The painter had successfully made it to the train station, leaving Chiyoko to wonder if she would ever see him again.
From the moment Chiyoko met the strange painter she knew she loved him, so she spent the next thirty years searching for the painter. She carried the key on her mission to find him, only to lose it or get it stolen from her periodically.
When Chiyoko grew old, she decided to retire to her quiet mountain villa, where she would live out the rest of her life, no longer searching for the mysterious painter. One day a director, who you come to find out, knew her when she was younger, shows up to interview her for his documentary, “The Seven Specters: The Legend of Fujiwara Chiyoko.” With him, he brings the key she had lost on the set of her final movie. The key unlocks the story of her life; it brings her back to the days of searching, movies and her childhood. She takes her two guests through each movie from her past in chronological order. In every movie she acted in, she is the same character, always the girl in distress searching for the boy who stole her heart.
Chiyoko admits that she hoped the painter would see her in one of her movies, and by the mid-50s, she was at the peak of her stardom. Surely, the painter would see her, which is only if he is still alive though. The rest of the story is a mystery unless you watch it for yourself.
This was a well thought out movie, every minute kept me guessing if I was going to see Chiyoko reunited with the person she loved and searched for thirty years. I am not much of a fan of love stories or romance, but this was good. The movies she acted in kept the pace up beat, there was action involved and a good bit of fantasy. The story lacks in humor, but here and there you might chuckle, so do not go looking for that when you watch this.
For those of you who watched Paprika, and liked it, this the same director, Satoshi Kon.