Tokyo Sonata (2008)

[lsanderson]

Tokyo Sonata Kôji Yakusho, left, and Kyôko Koizumi in the film which opens on Friday in New York and Los Angeles.
March 13, 2009
Upended by Downsizing
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: March 13, 2009

A genius of dread, known for his unnerving horror films and eerie thrillers, the wildly prolific Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa tends to ply his trade with spooky silences, a lived-in feel for everyday, droning life and a sense of social unease. Though his latest to hit the American big screen, “Tokyo Sonata,” looks like a family melodrama — if a distinctly eccentric variant on the typical domestic affair — there is more than a touch of horror to its story of a salaryman whose downsizing sets off a series of cataclysmic events. More