Tokyo is obviously on the shortlist for our Sphere’s Most Photogenic & Glamorous City—for argument’s sake, let’s peg it 3rd behind New York and Paris. As such, it’s been the neon-lit subject for a legion of cinematic odes—some wish it smashed (see: Godzilla and Toho’s litany of lethal kaiju), others seize upon its yakuza cool (see: Seijun Suzuki’s New Wave films like Tokyo Drifter or Branded to Kill), but the majority simply delight in the city’s dazzling, frenetic appeal. Meanwhile, American productions like Lost in Translation and the godawful Fast and Furious 3 capitalize on its alien, ad-dense enchantment.  

Tokyo! is the hypermodern city’s latest portrait—a triptych, in fact. Co-opting the concept from other city-centered anthologies (Paris Je T’aime, New York, I Love You, and New York Stories spring to mind), it corrals three foreign writer-directors—two Frenchmen (Michel Gondry and Leos Carax) and a Korean (Bong Joon-Ho, who helmed The Host)—for their unusual, outsider take on Tokyo life. The metropolis, with its cosmopolitan and consumerist bustle, becomes a Rorschach test for each director: three starkly different fictions materialize (and to various success at that).