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Millennium Actress: Hints of a Past and a Future

Millennium Actress: Hints of a Past and a Future

Last updated on: August 22, 2026 at 10:51 am by Chase Padusniak

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Millennium Actress: Hints of a Past and a Future 2026-08-22T10:51:50-04:00 Chase Padusniak

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Satoshi Kon
Source: Flickr user Aaron Webb
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Recently, I wrote about Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue (1997); it’s a cult masterpiece, yaddy yadda. It’s aged like…what feels more contemporary than fine wine? Old steak? The kind with the vaguely purple skin, the yellow fat cap, and the YouTube chef gesturing? Yes, it’s aged just like that. Delicious, ready for today more than it was for the time of its creation.

Kon directed four films (he wrote five and animated far more than that). Among these, one is clearly the last famous, at least among the Western film-o-dules, I’ve met: Millennium Actress (2001). Why is it the least remembered? Might be the worst—maybe. It’s probably, with the possible exception of Tokyo Godfathers (2003), the most “normal” of his directed features. Formally, it’s an absurd blending of time periods and realities. But the actual stuff of the narrative is pretty straightforward. It also (and this may be the top reason) is the least sexually focused and aggressive (again—potential exception for Tokyo Godfathers). And, without wishing to insult anime fans…

What is that “stuff,” then? Millennium actress follows a two-man film crew who set off to interview the aging star of a just-gone-under film studio. The cameraman finds the whole thing an absurd waste of time: who remember this retiree anyway? The man with the mic is much more sanguine. He’s a real fan. And in the world of Satoshi Kon that sets off alarm bells.

The interview begins the formal invention so characteristic of Kon’s films. The crew find themselves inside her life and film roles. The two become indistinguishable. What precisely is a fact of her life and what is merely something one of her characters did—who can tell? We learn about the primary desire that animated her life and learn the secret behind her interviewer’s attachment. Kon sprinkles in a bit about Japanese war crimes during WWII, the corrupting spirit of nationalism, and the devaluation of women and their role in society.

It is perhaps for these reasons that the film, despite its manifest achievements, has not attained the same level of fame as the other movies he directed. Millennium Actress is lush, gorgeous, and a brain twister (and that does seem to attract Kon fans). But it’s also a crash course in Japanese cinema. As we follow the actress, we also tour mid-20th century genre film on the island (never mind referencing certain specific movies). This is a cinephile’s film, not a breakout piece.

Maybe the real filmheads can resurrect this one. Why not? It’s the only one of his features left not to get that treatment.

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