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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Kon’s ‘Tokyo Godfathers’ returns in a new print

Dan Webster

It's impossible to write about the anime "Tokyo Godfathers" without mentioning John Ford.

Ford was the director of the 1948 film "Three Godfathers," which stars John Wayne, Pedro Armendáriz and Harry Carey Jr. as three outlaws on the run who try to save a baby whose mother just died.

"Tokyo Godfathers," a 2003 film co-directed by Satoki Kon and Shôgo Furuya, involves a trio of homeless people who, as the late Roger Ebert explained in his review, in "an alcoholic, a drag queen and a girl of about 11 — who find an abandoned baby in the trash on a cold Christmas Eve, and try for a few days to give it a home."

So, the nod to Ford is a bare one. But it's there nonetheless. Not that you have to take my word for it. "Tokyo Godfathers," in totally restored condition, will screen at 7 p.m. Monday (subtitled) and Wednesday (March 11, dubbed) at both Regal Northtown 12 and AMC River Park Square.

Besides Ebert, who hailed the film as "melodrama crossed with pathos, sometimes startling hard-boiled action, and enormous coincidence," other critics had this to say:

Gary Dowell, Dallas Morning News: "One of the most moving, enjoyable and wholly unconventional Christmas stories to come along in a long time."

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: "In one sense the plot involves returning stolen goods to a thief, but Tokyo Godfathers is really about longing — for family, for children, for parents and for the lost past."

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: "An ambitious and impressively inventive undertaking."

Tell them John Ford sent you.