Air Doll

Review of Air Doll by Tom Mes at Midnight Eye. "...For the past few years, Hirokazu Koreeda seems to be consciously trying to move toward a more commercial form of filmmaking, or at least toward making films capable of reaching audiences (particularly homegrown audiences) wider than festival and arthouse crowds. His pacifist samurai film Hana (Hanayori mo Naho, 2007), which starred multi-media idol and cover boy Junichi Okada, was a very clear attempt in that direction and saw the filmmaker promptly snubbed by the major festivals that normally vie for his presence. A planned biopic of perennially popular actress Yoshiko Yamaguchi / Ri Koran seems to have fallen through, but even with the seeming return to his Ozu-inspired arthouse roots that was Still Walking, Koreeda sought to reach a mainstream audience by casting the ubiquitous handsome romantic lead Hiroshi Abe as the father of the family."