A lyrical reflection on overpowering love, selfish choices, loss, abandonment and atonement.
VARIETY

The cinematography is colorful and sweeping, the editing and storytelling simple and pure.
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

Full of irony and intricate symbolism, it’s almost impossible to resist…the film itself is beautiful, as Takeshi moves his human puppets through richly coloured natural backdrops of the changing seasons.
EMPIRE

There aren’t many movies more visually beautiful than Takeshi Kitano’s odd but moving “Dolls.
ABOUT.COM

It’s all as passionate, refined, and insistently sad as Bunraku puppetry itself.
BOSTON GLOBE

Spellbinding and entirely original
TIME OUT

This is the most touching and resonant of (Kitano’s) films that I have seen to date…The three tales weave in and out of each other, taking a wistful, regretful course as the four seasons go by: autumn providing some beautiful, painterly compositions from cinematographer Katsumi Yanagishima. A pleasingly crafted, affecting work.
THE GUARDIAN

A work both rigorously stylized and deeply personal.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE

The stories have a fateful, lonely feel, like one of Wong Kar-wai’s missed connections. Yet their tragic timelessness, and the lovely, aching pace at which they are told, bring them to a level of extraordinary beauty.
COMBUSTIBLE CELLULOID

Kitano once again demonstrates his impressive versatility and confirms his status as one of the maverick stars of world cinema….resonating in the mind long after the lights have gone up.
FILM FOUR

A gorgeous meditation on love and devotion…the film’s hypnotic tone and beautifully formalized color scheme makes it unlike anything he’s done to date.
THE AV CLUB

The movie’s pace is appropriate to its mood, which is crisp, melancholy and gently cruel.
LA TIMES

Though Kitano has called Dolls ‘a puppet show with human characters,’ there’s nothing stiff or unreal about its intensity of feeling.
LA WEEKLY

Its sorrowful mood resonates beyond the end credits, allowing key themes to continue to gel.
VARIETY

Love and faith, Takeshi Kitano suggests in his lyrical and typically original film, can coexist with impossibility and loss.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

A compelling work from a genuine talent.
FILM JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL

Probably one of the most unusual testaments to love’s enduring power in recent memory.
REEL.COM

The long sequences of shuffling silence and haunted expressions are punctuated by moments of muted anguish that are unbearably heartbreaking
EFILM CRITIC

Lush and poetic, Dolls proves once again that Kitano is one of the world’s most original filmmakers.
NEW YORK POST

Kitano is now showing his softer, more interpretive side. Dolls is his most challenging and finest work to date.
FILM THREAT