Product Details

• Actors: Vivian Wu, Yoshi Oida, Ken Ogata, Hideko Yoshida, Ewan McGregor
• Directors: Peter Greenaway
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
• Language: Japanese (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: December 15, 1998
• Run Time: 126 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (122 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0767819772
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,173 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Pillow Book" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Peter Greenaway (The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, Drowning by Numbers) continues to delight and disturb us with his talent for combining storytelling with optic artistry. The Pillow Book is divided into 10 chapters (consistent with Greenaway's love of numbers and lists) and is shot to be viewed like a book, complete with tantalizing illustrations and footnotes (subtitles) and using television's "screen-in-screen" technology. As a child in Japan, Nagiko's father celebrates her birthday retelling the Japanese creation myth and writing on her flesh in beautiful calligraphy, while her aunt reads a list of "beautiful things" from a 10th-century pillow book. As she gets older, Nagiko (Vivian Wu) looks for a lover with calligraphy skills to continue the annual ritual. She is initially thrilled when she encounters Jerome (Ewan McGregor), a bisexual translator who can speak and write several languages, but soon realizes that although he is a magnificent lover, his penmanship is less than acceptable. When Nagiko dismisses the enamored Jerome, he suggests she use his flesh as the pages which to present her own pillow book. The film, complete with a musical score as international as the languages used in the narration, is visually hypnotic and truly an immense "work of art." --Michele Goodson

Product Description

Three experiences make an indelible impression on a young girl's childhood: her father's tender calligraphy on her face and neck, the text of a noblewoman's sensual diary, and the discovery that her father is being blackmailed.
Genre: Foreign Film - Chinese
Rating: UN
Release Date: 15-DEC-1998
Media Type: DVD

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting and unique film, June 19, 2001

By 

L. Young "lisafx" (Clearwater, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Pillow Book (DVD)

After reading the previous review I had to post a review of this movie so that people will not be mislead. Although I am quite willing to admit my ignorance of Asian art, whether Chinese, Japanese or other, I think this movie can be enjoyed on its own terms. Although the Pillowbook was confusing and disjointed to me at times, it was also intriguing and beautiful. For the previous reviewer to claim that all the characters acted in a monotone is simply untrue. Vivian Wu gave a subtle, nuanced and deeply emotional performance, and Ewan McGregor was wonderful as Jerome. Far from acting in a monotone, McGregor played Jerome with an infectious sense of fun during the early stages of his and Nagiko's relationship. Later, when Nagiko rejects him, his agony is vividly expressed and quite palpable. Additionally, to reduce this subtle and intense movie to "a fetish for naked Asian men" is patently unfair. There is nudity in the film, (although primarily of Wu and McGregor, neither of whom is an Asian man), but it is very tastefully done and relevant to the plot. In conclusion I would recommend this film to anyone who enjoys subtle and visually beautiful films. However, if you require lot's of special effects, explosions and action in a film, this is not the movie for you.

48 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A breathtakingly magnificent visual experience!, February 8, 2003

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Pillow Book (DVD)

THE PILLOW BOOK goes where few films have dared. Peter Greenaway is a unique artist and has created a touching story in a cinematic technique that is clearly his own. Simply stated, The Pillow Book is a journal kept by Japanese women who write private thoughts about desire, beauty, sensuality, and the moments in life that are indescribably unforgetable. In this story we see the unfolding of the life of a daughter of a calligrapher/writer who is able to provide for this beloved family and all their traditions by his assignations with his publisher. The child is taught her father's skills, each birthday having her father write the story of creation on her face, signed by 'god' on her back. This 'writing on the body' is eventually the means of gaining revenge on her father's demeaning publisher: she searches for the perfect lover (one who can make love as well as write beautifully in calligraphy) only to find a British translator (who happens to be the lover of her publisher)who encourages the girl to write her uniquely original books on his body - the matrix for delivery of her book to the publisher, a man who otherwise has rejected her gifts. To reveal the ending would spoil the mesmerizing intrigue of the film. Suffice it to say that love and honor eventually triumph...

The techniques of cinematic magic include the simultneous use of Black and White photogrpahy with Color photography, screens within screens, still life within motion, the wonder of observing Japanese writing, the use of written scrolls superimposed on moments of story telling. Greenaway is one of the very few directors who is unafraid of frontal nudity. He has the beauty of Vivian Wu and Ewan McGregor which he paints sensually, allowing the camera to view the entire body being adorned both with calligraphy and with love making. But seeing is believing and for those who thirst for originality in art, for adoration of the human form, for sensitive story telling with a subject that is wholly unique, then this film is a MUST.
THE PILLOW BOOK should be in the art library of all art lovers.

36 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Dizzy DVD Version, November 23, 1999

By 

Jason Seeley (Seattle WA/USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Pillow Book (DVD)

This DVD is an atrocity. I saw the dreaded warning to late, "This movie, while filmed in multi-aspect ratios, has been re-formatted to fit your T.V." With most hollywood flicks this doesn't matter, but for anyone who has seen this film in the theater watching this cropped version is like seeing loved ones gunned down in cold blood. I can only hope that there will be a special edition DVD that will include the entire film.