Backdrop fallback

Dolls

Dolls

Share

Dolls

"Three stories of never-ending love."

2002

1h 54m

7.5(365 votes)

Drama

Romance

Overview

Dolls takes puppeteering as its overriding motif, which relates thematically to the action provided by the live characters. Chief among those tales is the story of Matsumoto and Sawako, a young couple whose relationship is about to be broken apart by the former's parents, who have insisted their son take part in an arranged marriage to his boss' daughter.

Links & Resources

Website IMDbView

Social & External

Production Companies

TV Tokyo

Bandai Visual

Office Kitano

Tokyo FM

The people behind it

Cast & crew

10 featured cast members

Starring

Miho Kanno

Miho Kanno

Sawako

Hidetoshi Nishijima

Hidetoshi Nishijima

Matsumoto

Tatsuya Mihashi

Tatsuya Mihashi

Hiro

Chieko Matsubara

Chieko Matsubara

Ryoko

Kyoko Fukada

Kyoko Fukada

Haruna Yamaguchi

Tsutomu Takeshige

Tsutomu Takeshige

Nukui

Kayoko Kishimoto

Kayoko Kishimoto

Haruna's Aunt

Nao Omori

Nao Omori

Matsumoto's Colleague

Kanji Tsuda

Kanji Tsuda

Young Hiro

Yuko Daike

Yuko Daike

Young Ryoko

Creative team

Directed by: Takeshi Kitano
Written by: Takeshi Kitano
Produced by: Takio Yoshida
Masayuki Mori

Similar Movies

White Flag

Saran and Naran are young women in their early twenties trying to start a new life in the steppe as nomads. Despite their close bond, both are troubled by a ghost from the past. As they strive to move forward, they encounter a city detective Zorig, who questions the two about a missing man.

Defiant Delta

Defiant Delta

A poor village in Herzegovina suffers from constant flooding and different armies that periodically plunder the countryside. One woman is convinced that the solution to the problems lies in making a tunnel that should take the water to the sea.

Snow on The Blades

Snow on The Blades

At Sakurada Gate in 1860, the shogun’s chief minister and his retinue of bodyguards are ambushed and annihilated. Bearing the responsibility and shame for this failure is Shimura Kingo, master swordsman and chief of the guard. Forbidden to take his own life in atonement, he is instead tasked with hunting down the remaining assassins; however, fate intervenes and now only one is left. Devoted to his late lord and his duty, he relentlessly pursues the sole remaining assassin for the next thirteen years. But times are changing in Japan and the way of the sword has become outlawed. What does this mean for Kingo?

The Man in the Trunk

The Man in the Trunk

On an otherwise quiet night there is a startling knock at the door. Andrew Tucker answers the door to find an old friend whom he hasn't seen in years. The disheveled and absent friend comes to him with one request: "I need you to come with me but, I can't tell you where we're going." Andrew takes a chance but learns that every answer brings more questions. Nothing good ever comes knocking after midnight and Andrew's nightmare asks how far you would go to help a friend.

Mermaids

Mermaids

Mermaid sisters hunt down their father's human killer... and deal with their own personal relationships with the humans.

Stripped Naked

Stripped Naked

When exotic dancer Cassie happens upon a drug deal gone bad, she steals the money and the drugs thinking she now has the funds to make her dream of moving to Paris come true. But waiting three days to get her passport proves tougher than she thought when everyone she knows from her ex-boyfriend, to her drug addict boss, to her lesbian lover, to the rightful owner of the money decides to get in on the action.

A Girl Named Ann

A Girl Named Ann

A drug-addicted girl from an abusive family finds hope through kind people but her grim reality strikes back just as she sees a glimmer of light.

Dear Etranger

Dear Etranger

Makoto Tanaka is 40-years-old and has remarried. His wife is Nanae and they care for 2 daughters from Nanae's prior marriage. Makoto tries to have an ordinary family. Nanae then becomes pregnant. Afterwards, things begin to change among the family members.

Stark Raving Mad

Stark Raving Mad

Nebraska 1958. Richie Stark was no ordinary killer. What made him different was that he wasn’t running from murder - he was looking for it! Laura Ferguson, his adolescent girlfriend, just wanted to escape, but after the senseless murder of her father, she soon found herself on a road to hell. This is the true story of two young delinquents who in just a few days in 1958 raised hell along the highway, fell in love, and slaughtered seven innocents.

Shattered Illusions

Shattered Illusions

A Psycho stalks a talk radio personality and her mentally challenged sister.

Goth

Goth

Itsuki and Yoru share a passion for the dark and death, making them the perfect choice to track down a serial killer who is roaming the streets.

Private Detective 62

Private Detective 62

A former government agent in France, who has failed at an assignment and been disavowed, is deported back to the USA, where he can only find work at a low-rent detective agency. He soon gets involved with a woman with ties to a crooked gambling club owner, who is a client of his agency.

Inside Moves

Inside Moves

After a failed suicide attempt leaves him partially crippled, Rory begins spending a lot of time at a neighborhood bar full of interesting misfits. When Jerry the bartender suddenly finds himself playing basketball for the Golden State Warriors, Rory and the rest of the bar regulars hope his success will provide a lift to their sagging spirits. Will Jerry forget his friends? What about his junkie hooker girlfriend and her pimp?

Story of a Prostitute

Story of a Prostitute

Volunteering as a "comfort woman" on the Manchurian front, where she is expected to service hundreds of soldiers, Harumi is commandeered by the brutal Lieutenant Narita but falls for the sensitive Mikami, Narita's direct subordinate. Seijun Suzuki's Story of a Prostitute is a tragic love story as well as a rule-bending take on a popular Taijiro Tamura novel, challenging military and fraternal codes of honor, as seen through Harumi's eyes.

Possession

Possession

A priest has been tasked with deciding the location of a new church for the local mining company, which reveals itself to be on top of an old Sami burial ground. After removing the remains, the dead come alive and haunt the settlers.

The Challenge

The Challenge

Rick, a down-and-out American boxer, is hired to transport a sword to Japan, unaware that the whole thing is a set up in a bitter blood-feud between two brothers, one who follows the traditional path of the samurai and the other a businessman. At the behest of the businessman, Rick undertakes samurai training from the other brother, but joins his cause. He also becomes romantically involved with the samurai's daughter.

Motives

Motives

A highly successful business tycoon who is married to his ideal wife. Things get twisted awry when the man has an adulterous affair.

Investigation of Related Events

Investigation of Related Events

The movie shows a young man's life dramatically changed after his friend is murdered. It is ironic - if to look with today's eyes - and nostalgia evoking portrait of marginal society and environment in the early 1990s with allusions to the western cinema - film noir related themes, surrealistic features, avantgard cinema stylization and formal aesthetics.

Jack the Ripper

Jack the Ripper

A serial killer whose mother was a prostitute starts killing streetwalkers as a way of paying back his mother for her abuse.

Lady Maiko

Lady Maiko

Country bumpkin Haruko only ever wanted to become a maiko, an apprentice geisha. Initially rebuffed for lack of references, Haruko's strong accent intrigues a linguistics professor, who undertakes to coach her.

Recommended Movies

The Stranger by the Shore

The Stranger by the Shore

Abandoned after coming out, Shun befriends Mio just before he has to move. Years later, Mio returns with a confession. How will Shun feel?

The Sleeping Dictionary

The Sleeping Dictionary

In the 1930s, British officer John Truscott journeys to a remote village in colonial Malaysia to educate and Westernize the local Iban population. There, he's introduced to the lovely Selima. In keeping with tradition, Selima is assigned to sleep with Truscott and teach him the native language and customs. But when they fall in love, both colonists and natives object to their plans to marry.

47 Ronin

47 Ronin

Kai—an outcast—joins Oishi, the leader of 47 outcast samurai. Together they seek vengeance upon the treacherous overlord who killed their master and banished their kind. To restore honour to their homeland, the warriors embark upon a quest that challenges them with a series of trials that would destroy ordinary warriors.

Life in a Year

Life in a Year

A 17 year old finds out that his girlfriend is dying, so he sets out to give her an entire life, in the last year she has left.

Memoirs of a Geisha

Memoirs of a Geisha

In the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.

Fireworks

Fireworks

Moshimo, Japan. The annual fireworks festival is about to take place and a group of schoolboys, arguing over whether they are round or flat when viewed from different angles, set out to find it out.

Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms

Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms

Fleeing the war, the immortal Machia, graced with eternal youth, finds a baby abandoned in the forest and decides to raise it as her own child, sparking a moving story between a mortal and a being who does not age.

The Best of Me

The Best of Me

A pair of former high school sweethearts reunite after many years when they return to visit their small hometown.

Lars and the Real Girl

Lars and the Real Girl

Extremely shy Lars finds it impossible to make friends or socialize. His brother and sister-in-law worry about him, so when he announces that he has a girlfriend he met on the Internet, they are overjoyed. But Lars' new lady is a life-size plastic woman. On the advice of a doctor, his family and the rest of the community go along with his delusion.

Ali and Nino

Ali and Nino

Muslim prince Ali and Georgian aristocrat Nino have grown up in the Russian province of Azerbaijan. Their tragic love story sees the outbreak of the First World War and the world’s struggle for Baku’s oil. Ultimately they must choose to fight for their country’s independence or for each other.

Bleach the Movie: Fade to Black

Bleach the Movie: Fade to Black

A strange disturbance in the World of the Living sends Ichigo and Kon to the Soul Society, where the Seireitei has been devastated by an explosion of reishi and Rukia is missing. Stranger still, none of the Soul Reapers remember Ichigo, and they think he’s the one responsible for the destruction. Now on the run, Ichigo is forced into a lonely battle in order to find Rukia and stop the real culprits!

City of Angels

City of Angels

When a guardian angel – who invisibly watches over the citizens of Los Angeles – becomes captivated by a strong-willed heart surgeon, he ponders trading in his pure, otherworldly existence for a mortal life with his beloved. The couple embarks on a tender but forbidden romance spanning heaven and Earth.

Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre

After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meets the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Edward Rochester. Jane and her employer grow close in friendship and she soon finds herself falling in love with him. Happiness seems to have found Jane at last, but could Rochester's terrible secret be about to destroy it forever?

maboroshi

maboroshi

A factory explosion plunges a small town into a timeless freeze, leaving teenage Masamune and his pals to grapple with a quickly collapsing reality.

I Give My First Love to You

I Give My First Love to You

Takuma knows that his life is shorter than the others and he feels that his demise is getting near. He chose to stay away from the girl that he loves so that she can easily move on. What he didn't know is that he is under-estimating her.

Nobody Knows

Nobody Knows

In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.

Doctor Zhivago

Doctor Zhivago

The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.

Monster

Monster

After an outburst at school involving her son, a concerned single mother demands answers, triggering a sequence of deepening suspicion and turmoil.

Not Easily Broken

Not Easily Broken

A car accident and shifting affections test the bond between a married couple.

Violet Evergarden: The Movie

Violet Evergarden: The Movie

As the world moves on from the war and technological advances bring changes to her life, Violet still hopes to see her lost commanding officer again.