Perfect Days 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.5

Perfect Days 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 28, 2025

There's a bit of "social wisdom" whereby some insist you can tell a lot about people by the way they treat the wait staff at various emporia. In that regard, it might be really instructive to see how some might treat a public restroom janitor, even if the restrooms are high tech units that were celebrated parts of a public works project that actually has its own website. Wim Wenders is on hand in a supplement going into some detail about the genesis of this odd but endearing film, and he mentions how his entire filmography (or at least vast stretches of it) has tried to toe a kind of precipitous line between documentary and narrative techniques, and both of those elements are certainly on hand in Perfect Days, to the point that, as Wenders discloses in his interview, he was able to basically "convince" passers by in Tokyo during the filming that actor Kōji Yakusho actually was an employee and that Wenders and his crew were simply following him around on his daily clean up routines.

Hirayama (Kōji Yakusho) lives a Spartan existence in a nondescript flat with little more than a tatami mat on the floor, but nonetheless with two "little" sets of creature comforts which perhaps illuminate Hirayama's inner world, namely an interesting library of classic books but perhaps even more saliently a really interesting library of "archival" cassettes, music which literally accompanies Hirayama on his van rides around Tokyo but which also provide both diagetic and maybe slightly more traditional source cue underscore moments throughout the film. One of the curious and kind of touching sidebars in this "slice of life" story is Hirayama finding out more or less by accident that his vintage cassette collection may actually be worth considerable moolah, not that that makes any difference to Hirayama, since he is kind of a living proponent of minimalism and finding joy in whatever is in the "now".

There is therefore probably less of a traditional narrative than some might prefer, though there is a narrative, especially with regard to Hirayama's acolyte slacker worker Takashi (Tokio Emoto), as well as Takashi's would be girlfriend Aya (Aoi Yamada). There's somewhat more discursive content presented courtesy of Hirayama's work life, including a kind of "chain" tic tac toe game, as well as the barest hints of a nascent romance which may in fact not have a happy ending. Hirayama's niece Niko (Arisa Nakano) also shows up after having run away, which then briefly introduces Hirayama's apparently much better off sister Keiko (Yumi Asō) in a scene which frankly may distract more than add anything salient.

Where Perfect Days (the title is culled from one of Hirayama's cassettes) really excels perhaps more convincingly than in the halting depiction of familial or even professional dysfunctions is in sweetly showing just how resiliently, well, functional Hirayama turns out to be, even if nothing in this film admittedly approaches anything toward the level of actual disaster. This is a film of finding small joys in small moments, kind of like nurturing a miniature bansai tree, a hobby of Hirayama's, along with black and white photography of light playing through leaves. In that regard, Wenders provides a brief post credits text card offering the Japanese word Komorebi, with a definition mentioning "the shimmering of light and shadows that is created by leaves swaying in the wind. It only exists once, in the moment". It may also provide an interesting visual metaphor for "glints" of hope interplaying with "shadows" of melancholy, which could certainly sum up the emotional content of the film.

Perfect Days 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: Screenshots are sourced from the 1080 disc in this package.

Perfect Days is presented in 4K UHD courtesy of Criterion with an HEVC / H.265 encoded 2160p transfer in 1.33:1. This is the relatively rare release from The Criterion Collection where there's no technical information imparted in the foldout leaflet about the transfer. The IMDb is a bit more helpful, offering data points that the striking imagery was captured with a couple of Sony Venice models and finished at 4K. The result is a really lustrous looking presentation, despite some of the workaday elements at play in the actual storyline. This 4K UHD presentation takes all of the strengths of the excellent 1080 presentation from Criterion and offers what to my eyes were noticeable improvements in both fine detail and palette nuance throughout. From the opening moments in this 4K version, "little" elements like (palette wise) the apparently day for night dark blue sky or (detail wise) glints of car headlights on freeways in a wide shot of Tokyo have more suffusion and better clarity and delineation. Almost anachronistically given Hirayama's far from glamorous (and/or violent) life, there's an almost John Wick-ian color scheme on display at surprisingly recurrent times, including emphases on really evocative purples and teals that are beautifully burnished courtesy of HDR. Some of the golden hued scenes also have new energy in this version. There are several brief black and white interludes that allude to either Hirayama's picture taking or dreaming, and those tend to feature appropriately hazy, inchoate imagery, so detail levels are intentionally less generous.

Perfect Days 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Perfect Days features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track ostensibly in Japanese, though truth be told there's really not a ton of dialogue for at least several fairly long stretches of the film. Instead the track has a really nicely spacious accounting of both ambient environmental effects (probably most noticeably in the urban settings) but especially with the use of a fantastic array of source cues supposedly culled from Hirayama's impressive cassette collection (for example, you get to hear House of the Rising Sun in both English and Japanese). Dialogue (which does tend to pick up in the latter part of the film in particular) is presented clearly and cleanly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Perfect Days 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Note: The 4K disc in this package offers no supplementary content. The 1080 disc has the following bonus items:

• Wim Wenders (HD; 25:37) is featured in this appealing interview shot in Berlin in March 2024. Wenders gives some great background information on his love of Ozu, obviously a major influence on this film, as well as his history with (and in) Japan.


• Koji Yakusho (HD; 14:20) is offered in this appealing 2023 interview, where he discusses some of his general approaches toward film acting as well as his specific work on creating the character of Hirayama. Subtitled in English.


• Koji Yanai (HD; 9:29) is a really interesting 2023 interview with the film's producer, who was also the founder of the Tokyo Toilet Project. Subtitled in English.


• Some Body Comes Into the Light (HD; 8:34) is a 2023 short by Wim Wenders featuring actor, choreographer and dancer Min Tanaka.

Introduction by Wim Wenders (HD; 3:49) is accessible under the Play Menu for the short. Maybe a bit oddly, this is not authored to proceed on to the short itself.

• Trailer (HD; 1:46)

The sleeve has an inner print, and the keepcase encloses a foldout leaflet in the place of a traditional booklet. Bilge Ebiri contributes an interesting essay called Where the Light Comes Through.

Perfect Days 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This is a deliberately "quiet" and "little" film that nonetheless delivers some surprisingly visceral emotional content, at least for those who don't require histrionic dramatics and/or traditional three act structures. There's an almost dreamlike quality to a lot of the visuals Wenders and director of photography Franz Lustig have concocted, and the film has an absolutely devastating performance from Kōji Yakusho, who took home a bevy of international awards for his work, including Best Actor at Cannes. Technical merits are excellent and the supplements very enjoyable. Highly recommended.