Millennium Actress

As a Japanese movie studio demolishes its old soundstages, blustery exec Genya and irreverent young videographer Ida start a documentary on one of their stars, actress Chiyoko Fujiwara, who retired at the height of her career. They find the reclusive Chiyoko -- 70, the same age as the studio -- gracious and hospitable. Her memories of growing up against the rising Japanese fascism of the 1930s are so vivid that Genya (who, comically, has a lifelong infatuation with Chiyoko) and Ida find themselves back in flashbacks with her, dutifully videotaping the girl's childhood brief encounter with a handsome, nameless artist running from Japanese authorities. This fugitive gives Chiyoko a gold key to "the most important thing there is" and disappears. Discovered by a talent agent, Chiyoko turns film actress to track her mystery man to Manchuria, where a propaganda drama is to shoot. During this, the two-man documentary crew reappears as observers/characters in Chiyoko's films -- historical pageants of thwarted love and romantic yearning, set amidst samurai, ninjas, and 20th-century soldiers. Truth and fiction blend in Chiyoko's life, career, and unending search for her nameless first love.