Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		5.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Air Doll Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson April 16, 2024

In her book, My Fair Ladies: Female Robots, Androids, and Other Artificial Eves (Rutgers University Press, 2015), Julie Wosk traces the history of kakuri or mechanical dolls in Japan to the eighteenth-century (the Edo period) when craftsmen adapted Western clockwork mechanisms. Female dolls would resemble tea servers with walking legs that moved and glided forward (p. 36). A few hundred years later, Hirokazu Kore-eda portrays the different roles a Japanese doll plays in twenty-first-century postmodern life. In an early scene in his Air Doll (2009), Kore-eda shows Hideo (Itsuji Itao), a lonely middle-aged man who works as a waiter in a western-style family restroom, in his abode's dining room with a life-sized vinyl female doll. She is dressed as a chambermaid, which is probably similar to the outfits craftsmen envisioned adorning their dolls that Wosk mentions in her book. Hideo has named the inflatable doll Nozomi after his ex-girlfriend, who he must still be missing. Nozomi sits opposite Hideo so he can tell her about his day. She also serves as an erotic companion for him when he makes love to her at him. Throughout the film, Kore-eda deconstructs the roles and performativity that Nozomi assumes on behalf of her lovers, children who observe her, and people she meets in a section of Tokyo.

Kore-eda constructs Air Doll like a fairy tale. One day the static and immobile Nozomi magically reaches sentience when she touches water dripping from a window. "Beautiful" is the first translated word to come out of her mouth. While Hideo is away at work, Nozomi (now portrayed by Bae Doo-na) ventures outside to consciously experience the city for the first time. She often imitates the movements and actions of passersby and persons she encounters, who take her as rather peculiar. Nozomi wanders into a video rental store known as the Cinema Circus. There she is befriended by Junichi (Arata), an employee who does not know she's originally a doll. Nozomi's friendliness and curiosity help earn her a job as a video clerk. When Hideo takes Nozomi outside with him one evening to sit on a bench, he is unaware that she has just previously sprung to life.

Trying on a new brassiere.

It seems that based on the first act, Air Doll will center on the one-way relationship between Hideo and Nozomi. The film opens with Hideo staring vacantly at his reflection while riding the Tokyo Monorail. He then eats with a silent Nozomi in his presence, has sex with her, and bathes her. But the movie becomes much more about Nozomi's human-like connection to Junichi who she not only works with, but also takes walks with, goes out to dinner with, and rides on the back of his motorbike. Viewers who have seen Air Doll since its original release have claimed it would have been better if Kore-eda trimmed the film from 125 minutes to around 90 minutes. But I believe the longer length is necessary so the audience can get to know Nozomi better and the various characters Kore-eda introduces, including the Geppetto-like doll maker, Sonoda (Joe Odagiri). I disagree with film historian and Japanese cinema expert David Bordwell who wrote in his blog that the movie suffers from "underdeveloped execution." There's a scene late in the film in which Nozomi makes a fateful decision. Kore-eda does not give an ostensive reason for her actions. In a number of his films, Kore-eda leaves open-ended plot points purposely ambiguous so the audience can ponder larger questions. Air Doll is no different.

Air Doll Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Dekanalog's release of Air Doll comes on an MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50 (disc size: 39.46 GB). The film appears in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1. World-class cinematographer Mark Lee Ping-bing shot the picture using Arricam cameras as well as Zeiss and Angenieux lenses. While there was a DI finished in 2K (probably for cinemas that had DLP projection in 2009), Air Doll was printed on 35 mm film stock. I watched the movie in my home theater and also examined it shot by shot on a monitor. The print looks clean with no compression-related artifacts. Noise reduction or filtering is not apparent at all. Skin tones appear wholly natural. The city's various outdoor lights and those seen in buildings from afar have a mint green gleam to them at dusk or nightfall (see Screenshot #s 2, 9, 11, and 16). Dekanalog has encoded the film at an average video bitrate of 34963 kbps.

The 125-minute feature has received eleven chapter breaks.

Air Doll Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Dekanalog has supplied a Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo mix (1650 kbps, 24-bit). (The back cover incorrectly lists it as 5.1.) Dekanalog's uncompressed track is a technical upgrade over the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix found on Matchbox's 2020 UK Blu-ray. Spoken words are usually always audible and easy to discern. The matrixed stereo surround mix has a wonderful ambience. It even sounds like a quasi-5.1 track on some occasions when noises from the garbage trucks are heard almost discretely on the rear channels. The front and satellite speakers are often evenly balanced with reverberations heard on the latter. Music by solo composer world's end girlfriend (aka Katsuhiko Maeda) sounds warm. A Xylophone-like instrument and piano are cleverly employed and contrasted to represent different facets of Nozomi and the different stages of her character.

The optional white English subtitles are clear and legible. (See an example in frame grab #20.)

Air Doll Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Dekanalog has ported over all the extras from Matchbox Films' 2020 Blu-ray "Collector's Edition":

• World Premiere at the 62nd Annual Cannes Film Festival (4:44, upscaled to 1080i) - a compilation of footage from Cannes' 2009 festival featuring Kore-eda and his actors doing interviews and being applauded after a screening of Air Doll. The camera captures a nice moment of Juliette Binoche giving her reaction of the film to Kore-eda. (Binoche went on to work with the director a decade letter in The Truth.) The footage is shown in 1.78:1 and 1.33:1. The voice-over narration and Kore-eda's remarks are in Japanese with English subtitles.

• Q&A at the Japanese Premiere (9:49, upscaled to 1080i) - Air Doll's domestic premiere has appearances by director Hirokazu Kore-eda, and actors Bae Doona, Arata Iura, and Itsuji Itao. This isn't really a traditional Q&A with audience members asking questions of the filmmakers. The footage simply presents Kore-eda and his actors delivering reflections on making Air Doll. Kore-eda describes the project's origins, making edits to the movie after the Cannes premiere, and how the picture is, in some ways, autobiographical. The actors relate their experiences of making the film. In Japanese with English subtitles.

• Camera Slate and Outtakes Montage (6:38, upconverted to 1080p) - a collection of outtakes and behind-the-scenes moments during the making of Air Doll. The footage is conspicuously struck from an interlaced source because there's lots of aliasing throughout the frames. Still, a nice compilation and fun footage to see. Sound is music only. This probably first appeared on Matchbox Films' 2012 R2 UK DVD.

• NEW Theatrical Trailer (2:17, 1080p) - Dekanalog's official trailer for Air Doll when the film played in US theaters in 2022. It's presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo (1654 kbps, 24-bit). In Japanese with English subtitles.

• NEW Booklet - a 20-page booklet with Air Doll artwork, stills, specs, credits, and a scholarly essay by Joel Neville Anderson. The latter reads like a peer-reviewed journal article with footnotes and endnotes. Anderson gives an overview of Kore-eda's career, how Air Doll is a transitional work for Kore-eda and cinema as a whole ca. 2009, the different implications of casting Korean actress Bae Doona, among several other subtopics. The essay is worth a read at least a couple times!

Air Doll Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Air Doll (2009) is a fascinating cinematic fable about an inflatable doll who assumes human-like qualities. It adeptly taps into the Asian male's repressive state and his need to fulfill erotic desires while remaining in control of an impotent object. It also raises the question that if dolls ever became human hybrids, could they be genuinely loved since they have acquired some feelings and emotions? The film has been criticized as too sentimental and saccharine but I feel those characterizations are overblown. I hope that the source for Kore-eda's adapted screenplay is published in English: manga writer Gōda Yoshiie's 20-page graphic novella, Gouda's Philosophical Discourse: The Pneumatic Figure of a Girl. Dekanalog delivers a practically flawless transfer and spacious lossless stereo mix. The vintage extras are minimal but still very welcome. While Air Doll does not rank among Kore-eda's finest works, it still deserves a STRONG RECOMMENDATION.