Tokyo Godfathers(2004)

PG-13
1h 32m

Release Date: Jan 16, 2004 | Limited

On Christmas Eve, three homeless people living on the streets of Tokyo discover a newborn baby among the trash and set out to find its parents.

Official Website

Note: Distributed by IDP Distribution

Releases

Original Release | Jan 16, 2004

2020 Re-release (Fathom Entertainment) | Mar 9, 2020

2023 Re-release (20th Anniversary) (Iconic Events Releasing) | Dec 11, 2023

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Box Office Results

All Releases (3)
Total US & Canada:
$367,131
Total International
$237,279
Total Worldwide:
$605,610

Total US & Canada:
$129,560
Total International
$149,451
Total Worldwide:
$279,011

Current Showtimes

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(U.S. Only)

Director & Top Cast

Satoshi Kon
Director

Mamiko Noto
Actor

Technical Specifications

Sound Mix: Dolby Digital

Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1

Other Details

Country of Origin: Japan

Language: Japanese,Spanish,English

Summaries

Plot Summary

One Christmas Eve after watching a children's performance of the nativity scene, three homeless people - a middle-aged alcoholic named Gin (Tooru Emori) (he used be a cycle racer, and threw a race as he needed money and was banned from the sport), a transgender woman named Hana (Yoshiaki Umegami), and a dependent teenage runaway girl named Miyuki (Aya Okamoto) - discover an abandoned newborn while searching through the garbage for presents. Deposited with the unnamed baby is a note asking the unknown finder to take good care of her and a bag containing clues to the parents' identity. Hana decides that this is a message from God and she is the protector of the baby.The trio sets out to find the baby's parents. The baby is named Kiyoko (Satomi Koorgi) by Hana, based on the Japanese translation of Silent Night literally meaning "pure child", as she is found on Christmas Eve. They find a locker key in Kiyoko's stuff and figure that belongs to a railway station locker. Inside the locker, they find any business cards of a particular club. Hana buys tickets for the train to the club. But the trains stop midway due to heavy snow. Miyuki exits the train from a window, when another train stops alongside theirs and she sees her father inside it. Hana and Gin follow and they take refuge in a cemetery. Outside a cemetery, the group encounters a high-ranking Yakuza boss trapped under his car. The man happens to know the owner of the club where Kiyoko's mother used to work; The Yakuza boss's daughter is going to be marrying the club's owner that day.At the wedding reception, the groom tells them that the baby's mother is a former bar girl named Sachiko (Kyouko Terase). He gives them Sachiko's address, but the party is interrupted when a maid, revealed to be a Latino hit-man in disguise, attempts to shoot the bride's father (but the groom takes the bullets on him instead). The hit-man kidnaps Miyuki and baby Kiyoko while holding them hostage at gunpoint and takes them back to his home. There, Miyuki befriends the hit-man's wife who happens to have a child of her own and they begin bonding (despite their language barrier as she is Spanish. The hit-man's wife breast feeds baby Kiyoko). While looking through old photo albums, Miyuki tearfully confesses to fleeing her home after stabbing her over-controlling father Ishida (Yuusaku Yara) when her beloved cat Angel went missing (believing that he had gotten rid of it).Hana searches for Miyuki and Kiyoko while Gin takes care of an elderly homeless man who is dying in the street. After giving Gin a little red bag, the old man peacefully passes away. Some teenagers show up and beat up Gin and the dead old man's corpse. Meanwhile, Hana finds the girls (after getting a ride from the taxi driver, who dropped off the hit-man and the girls) and they go off to find a place to stay. They go to Angel Tower, a club where Hana had worked at before quitting her job for assaulting a rude and intoxicated customer years ago.Gin, who was rescued by another member of the club, is also there. While there, it's learned that Hana had become homeless when her lover Ken had died from injuring himself after slipping on a bar of soap in the bathroom. The trio set out to find Sachiko's house, but they discover that it has been torn down. They are informed (By neighbors) of the unhappy relationship between Sachiko and her husband, who is a gambling alcoholic (by all accounts Sachiko used to treat her husband badly). The group rests at a store until they are told to leave by the clerk. As soon as they leave, an ambulance crashes into the store. Hana feels Kiyoko is a messenger of God and saved their lives. Hana collapses, and is taken by Gin and Miyuki to the hospital. Once at the hospital, Gin finds his estranged daughter, who is also named Kiyoko (Mamiko Noto), working as a nurse.Hana berates Gin in front of his daughter (for abandoning his family after he ran up a gambling debt) and storms out of the hospital, with Miyuki following behind with baby Kiyoko in hand. Hana and Miyuki find Sachiko about to jump off a bridge. Sachiko insists that her husband got rid of the baby without her knowledge, and that they return the baby to her.Gin finds Sachiko's husband, who confirms a TV report Gin saw earlier that Kiyoko was actually stolen by Sachiko from the hospital. They chase after Sachiko and Kiyoko (Sachiko sees the Trio coming to confront her and steal a postal van to escape with Kiyoko). After an intense car chase, Miyuki chases Sachiko to the top of a building. Sachiko reveals she became pregnant in hopes it would bring her closer to her husband. When her baby was stillborn, she decided to kidnap Kiyoko from the hospital's nursery, thinking, in her grief, the baby was hers. As Sachiko is about to jump off the building intending to commit suicide with Kiyoko in her hands, her husband comes out of his apartment, located just across the street, and begs her to start over with him.Sachiko jumps off nevertheless, but Miyuki manages to catch her before she falls, but then Sachiko accidentally drops Kiyoko. Hana jumps off the building after Kiyoko, catches the baby, and lands safely due to a miraculous gust of wind. Hana, Miyuki, and Gin are taken to the hospital. Miyuki hands Gin his cigarettes and drops the old man's small red bag on the floor, revealing a winning lottery ticket (20 MM Yen). Kiyoko's real parents want to ask the trio to become her godparents. When a police inspector introduces them to the trio, the inspector is revealed to be Miyuki's father.

Storyline

Christmas in Tokyo, Japan. Three homeless friends: a young girl, a trans woman, and a middle-aged bum. While foraging through some trash, they find an abandoned newborn. Hana, the trans woman with frustrated dreams of being a mother, convinces the others to keep it overnight. The next day, using a key found with the baby, they start tracking down the parents, with many adventures along the way. — Jon Reeves