Rating: 
Summary: A Psychological Thriller with a few rough spots
Review: Perfect Blue was a movie I followed closely over the past month. A young pop idol named Mima Kirigoe, decides its time to switch careers as dictated by her manager. Her new profession as an actress on a TV show that is.... so to speak, dirty, causes her to see a mirror double of herself and begins to question whether her career choice was wise. Throughout the film Mima is terrorized by her mirror like doppleganger, and a stalker who calls himself the "Mimaniac" (really bad dub job here). The people around her are killed brutally and the killer is slowly getting closer to Mima. As a result of all this Mima slowly grows more and more unstable, culminating into the big ending that was pretty cool execpt during the final few scenes there is a plot twist that will literally kill the movie.... Which is sad because it was going great until this part came along. Overall a cool, creepy and stylish flick, I reccomend the subbed version though.
Rating: 
Summary: The best psychological thriller.
Review: Perfect Blue is one of my all time favorite anime's by Manga. This movie is twisted with a damn good plot, it has some of the best animation and character design's you will find in an anime. It took me about two or three times watching this movie to fully understand what was going on but in time i finaly did, this movie is the s**t. I've loved it ever sence the first time i watched it and hopefully you will come to love it to (it is a masterpeace). I recomend it to fans of Manga Entertainment and to anime lovers, get into anime's for they will change your life.
Rating:
Summary: PERFECT BLUE is perfect anime.
Review: I've seen quite a few anime films and most of them are the same so i have to say that this movie was a breath of fresh air. I went to see it in limited release and after seeing it i thought" Whoa!". The plot concerns a young pop star named Mima who is leaving her singing trio named Cham to pursue acting. When she is given a role in a soap opera she is given a scene to do in it where she has to be violently raped (think Jodie Foster's rape in THE ACCUSED) and soon after she is being menaced by an obsessed fan who is infuriated by the way she is trashing her wholesome image. Soon after she starts to descend into a psychological state where she can't tell what is real or unreal and many of the people around her are violently murdered. Typically in an anime film the dubbing is poor but the dubbing here is great. The direction is very stylish and you really have to pay attention because the director really puts you into Mima's mind so that soon after you can't tell what is real or not. The animation is top notch and the suspense in this movie is constant and it keeps you on edge. This movie is not like an anime movie at all, you could easily mistake for a live action movie. This is one of the few movies where when it declares that it is a psychological thriller it turns out to be that. The violence is very startling, even if it is animated. I recommend this to anyone who loves a good psychological mystery. I look forward to more anime movies of this kind.
Rating:
Summary: Compelling and interesting anime.
Review: Friday, February 25, 2005 / 4 of 5 / Compelling and interesting anime.
What an interesting surprise this anime was. As a member of a pop idol trio leaves and strives to become a serious actress, she slowly begins to lose touch with reality. Questions of identity abound as she imagines her old pop idol persona has peeled away from her and is acting independent of her. Murders begin to occur and the viewer is left to wonder who is committing them from her alter ego to debased fans and other unknown entities. The final twist was very well done and in hind sight makes a lot of sense, but you won't see it coming. Straddling the line between light hearted and heavy drama it's a strangely compelling anime story.
Rating:
Summary: Great anime art imitates life in Perfect Blue
Review: First a big error correction, this anime came out in 1997 not 1999, anyhow Satoshi Kon makes an indelible imprint here on
this anime. He in a way satirizes in dark fashion the pop star
phenomem in Japan and in the US when we such crap as American
Idol and thinking that these performers have talent when in reality the winner of these shows is also predertimed.
In a way Satoshi satirizes how many actors an actress who
are "pop stars" think they can make the jump to acting and
vice versa and be a success and not be a sellout.
Junko Iwao as the voice of Mima Kirigoe is great she plays
a retired singer who wants to be an actress. However, she stars
in a very dark movie where she is raped. She has a huge
stalker Uchida who watches her every move unbeknowst to her.
When Uchida sees her "raped" onscreen, he sees the image of this
very pop star go down the drain and it energizes his hate
for her as well as his obsession.
Ironically too Mima also regrets making her jump to being
an actress she even develops a split personality with herself
as an actress and a singer. Reminiscent of personal demons
many actresses have.
This is a great anime it has it all suspense, action and a great
twist check it out.
Rating: 
Summary: Somewhat interesting, but highly disturbing anime film.
Review: I had heard a lot about the film Perfect Blue, so I thought I would give it a try. I have been trying to watch the "best of anime" and this is one that keeps appearing on the lists. Here are my impressions...
The narrative of the film consists of multiple layers of reality and is fairly confusing. I do not intend to spoil the plot, but I would like to give a sense of where the confusing elements come from. The story centers around a young pop star named Mima would wants to change careers in order to be an actress. Once she makes the transition she find that the television producers don't have any faith in her acting skills, but want to exploit her good looks and her fame, so they cast her in a degrading, exploitative role where she has to film an explicit rape scene. Her management also insists that she goes on a risqué photo shoot, and otherwise exploit her at the lowest possible level. The film at times will switch without warning between Mima's real life and the television drama that she appears in. This becomes complex as events in both worlds start mirroring each other-dialogue in the drama seems to reflect events in her life and so forth. Besides the switching, this is pretty clear so far, right? Then there is another character in the film who is suffering from split personality disorder and at times this character believes that she is Mima. The film switches between the point of view of the two characters without telling you when it makes the switch. This becomes especially complex since the mentally ill character will at times hallucinate and have difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality. People from reality appear in the delusions of the mentally ill character as facets of her personality. This troubled, mentally ill character then tries to work through her problems by pitting the various facets of her personality against each other. So when you watch a scene you have to wonder whether it is "really" happening or whether it is simply a delusional fantasy of the mentally ill character. Then there is the crazy, obsessed fan who tries in a sense to become Mima by posting an online diary where he pretends to be Mima and writes about intimate details of her day from what he alleges to be her point of view. Mima discovers the diary and becomes disturbed and frightened both by the level of detail and by the interpretations that this diary writer makes about daily events in her life. OK, so this already confusing since there are two other characters trying to take over the life of the main character. But maybe that's not it at all. Maybe there is no distinction between fantasy and reality. Maybe there is no sane world in this film. Maybe there is no television drama. And maybe there is no real Mima, or at least no real Mima in the film. Perhaps all of the characters are multiple personalities of the main character and the other two characters trying to steal Mima's life are really personalities trying to emerge and become the dominant personality. At any rate the film is a mix of all of these different elements-the delusions, the Mima's crime drama, "reality." Watch the film for yourself to figure out what you believe is going on.
Some of you may be complaining at this point that I just spoiled the entire film. Not quite. As may other reviewers have suggested, this film is best understood after multiple viewings. The film is filled with so many plot twists and multiple layers that it becomes difficult to keep them all straight. Perhaps it is true that the film becomes more clear with multiple viewings. I have to say that I have seen Perfect Blue once and that's enough for me. The film is an entry in the "shocking, sexually-charged thriller" genre that was quite popular in Hollywood in the late eighties and early nineties. Perfect Blue missed the peak of that genre by a fair number of years. By now this genre seems overexposed and tired. The film certainly is shocking--explicit rape scenes, graphic eyeball gouging, blood splattered everywhere--but hasn't this been done a thousand times before? Once we've been shocked, it become increasingly more difficult to make things shocking. Perfect Blue attempts to raise the bar of shocking content, but ends up delivering scenes that are distasteful, but not really as shocking as they were intended to be. In comparison to this film, Hitchcock's shower murder scene in Psycho was a masterpiece of subtlety and restraint. Perfect Blue does have a few moments where the viewer discovers that scenes in the film may have really meant something completely different than we were originally lead to believe. These scenes are effective and deliver more shocks than the graphic violence.
Bottom line: This film is definitely not for children or for people who have had their fill of thrillers in the style of those starring Michael Douglas. I'm not a fan of that genre, but someone who is may enjoy this film. Perfect Blue does offer the viewer the same kind of puzzling, multilayered narrative structure that we all know and love from Existenz, Vanilla Sky, and a multitude of other films.
Rating:
Summary: The second best anime film out there...
Review: Second only to Akira, this striking and original movie combines adorable animation and characters with dark, sinister and disturbing scenes or violence and sex. very artistic and very sureal a must-have for any anime fan. confusing at parts but if you use ur brain (if u have one in this day and age, 1 star reviewers in looking at u again) you might work this 'vanilla sky like' plot out. it took me 3 go's. lol. enjoy
Rating:
Summary: Perfect Blue
Review: This Japanese anime feature is a tense, violent exploration of identity and madness. The closest animated American equivalent is the film Waking Life, but, where Waking Life is a dreamlike movie, Perfect Blue is nightmarish, punctuated by graphic murders. The film traces teen idol Mima as she tries to become a film star, diving into near-porn because "it's what I have to do as an actress" -- or is she dreaming this all? She is pursued by a mysterious internet stalker who hates her for sullying his idol -- or is she the stalker, murdering her film co-workers one by one? Her sole protector is her best friend -- or is her best friend impersonating her and trying to kill her? Does Mima exist at all? Is she the fantasy of a young girl in an insane asylum?
I couldn't possibly take the violence in this film in live action, but animation makes it tolerable. It's not great or even particularly smooth animation (much less accomplished than the director's work in Tokyo Godfathers), but it has a slightly demented feeling that matches the subject well. (It reminds me of the scene in Brazil where a torturer wears the mask of an insipid, smiling baby.) The colors are pastel, candy-colored, until blood splashes the screen; then the film reaches the kind of graphic art genius the Japanese do so well.
Rating: 
Summary: Not so great ...
Review: I'm a big fan for Japanese anime, but I find this a bit "disgusting" at the certain parts. Maybe, female audience will agree with me in this, the movie is a bit perveted. There was a scene where people were shooting how woman is raped, then some provactive pictures of how she sort of touched herself. In some "real" movies, sexual scene were shot artistically or erotically. But, this movie just failed that.
Rating:
Summary: Satoshi Kon's thriller inspires debate.
Review: Perfect Blue is an excellent psychological thriller which depicts the decent into maddness of young pop idol turned actress, Mima Kirigoe. The film slowly turns from Mima's struggle as an actress to a fight for her own identity and sanity. The film takes you inside her paranoid delussions and nightmares, as you start to loose track of what is acctually happening, and what is just a product of Mima's fears. The film will leave you wondering what really did happen during its course and inspires insightful debate. The film also bears striking resemblances to a film named "Audition" by Miike Takashi which also has simmilar mind trips and the sudden switch from normal situations to violent or non sensical ones.
Satoshi Kon's direction is a true marvel, echoing the best works of Kubrick and Hitchcock through the ubundance of suspense and tension in his scenes. The cinematography is excellent promoting the feeling of confusion and paranoia that is vital during the pivitol scenes of the film.
Perfect Blue is really one of those films that breaks the boundaries and conventions that are expected from animation, just through the depiction of the characters and the world.
The films animation rate may not be as high as others, but it puts all its efforts mainly into detailed stills that are used throughout the film.
Perfect Blue is really a hit and miss film depending on the person, the film does explain things at the end, but it doesn't make all that much sense, requiring you to put the pieces together(but the pieces are there), this film will not spell things out for you as most films do. It's quite subjective and you can read it in different ways, this can tend to turn some people off, but that's what I really love about this film, as you can watch it a few times over and read differently each time.
|
