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04/01/06
Cafe Lumiere (2004)
94 %
Reviews Counted: 17 Fresh: 16 Rotten:1 Average Rating: 8.1/10
Runtime: 1 hr 44 mins
Synopsis: Hou Hsiao-Hsien, one of China's greatest filmmakers, honors the memory of the great Yasujiro Ozu in the beautiful CAFÉ LUMIERE. Like Ozu, Hou tries to capture honesty and reality in the film, which stars pop idol Yo Hitoto as Yoko, a young woman who makes her way through life almost casually,... [More]
Genre: Foreign Films
Starring: Yo Hitoto, Tadanobu Asano, Masato Hagiwara, Yo Kimiko, Nenji Kobayashi
Director: Hou Hsaio-Hsien
Screenwriter: Chu Tien-Wen
Producer: Ichiro Yamamoto, Fumiko Osaka, Hideshi Miyajima, Ching-Sung Liao
Composer: Yo Hitoto
Screenwriter: Chu Tien-Wen
Producer: Ichiro Yamamoto, Fumiko Osaka, Hideshi Miyajima, Ching-Sung Liao
Composer: Yo Hitoto
Reviews
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Top CriticClick to read the article
02/09/06
Top Critic
The plot may be almost non-existent, but who cares when a film is both this serenely beautiful and quietly insightful.
05/31/05
Top Critic
[This Ozu homage] is revealing and enlightening, but unlike Ozu's work, this is also somewhat dull and uninvolving.
11/08/04
You don't take this journey for the bends in the road, but the fleeting sights along the way make it memorably rewarding.
12/30/07
Rather than go the trivial route of aping Ozu's style and storytelling, [Hou] uses the techniques he's honed to create his own take on the state of Japan's ever increasing modernity.
09/21/06
Framing the visual haphazardness of urban streets in exquisite, dense, Shiko-like scroll paintings, Hou demonstrates how even in a megalopolis life is lived on a human scale, one day, one person at a time.
03/19/06
A tribute to Yasujiro Ozu that can be seen as one film great saluting another from a different culture and time period.
03/10/06
Like all Hou films, viewers will want to ponder Cafe Lumiere and its many layers well after this year's Oscars have come and gone.
01/26/06
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01/21/06
Both Hou and Ozu excel in evoking the poetry of everyday life, and, as a tribute from one great filmmaker to another, Cafe Lumiere should richly satisfy devotees of both artists.
01/19/06
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07/15/05
The film looks for small connections and fragments of significance in the comings and goings of everyday life.
06/21/05
Hou's sensitivity plus Ozu's inspiration equals sublimity of sight and sound.
06/16/05
Hou fans will find what they're looking for; others will wonder when the action starts.
06/10/05
Top Critic
An original work by a filmmaker who throughout his career has absorbed the best of what Ozu had to teach, and as such it stands as beautiful tribute from one master to another.
06/10/05
Although pegged as an author of contemplative mood pieces, Hou's originality as a filmmaker has much to do with both his handling of historical material and his daringly counterintuitive narrative structures.
05/31/05
A fascinating curiosity, a chance to witness one major filmmaker paying tribute to another in the form of a rigorously minor film.
05/14/05
Top Critic
A languorous rumination on the relationship between the inescapable past, hesitant present, and daunting future.
10/15/04
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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