Instant Favorite.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

I am Japanese who have worked in Tokyo for 2years and currently working in Sweden.I wonder how much author of original book and director of this movie know about Japanese work culture because the story is for me just an old joke that looks like something from the 1900s Yellow peril or "Rising sun" by Michael Crichton, its very stereotyped view of what the Japanese are doing or what they are like, kind of saying that there's reason to not trust them and not like them. It is the typical way of showing how "different" Japanese people and Japanese culture is, and how impossible it is for a foreigner to even begin to understand the weird and bizarre psyche of the Japanese salary slave, scary robot like people who act in a too perfect manner to be truly human, maybe not even have a soul. Why are these differences always highlighted? A celebration to Western work culture and thinking is what this is, her creative brain was suffocated in the Japanese system, the Japanese only breed mindless robots who are good with numbers but have the social skills of a robot. It is sad that this movie is by some believed to be a somewhat accurate picture of Japan and its people.

I enjoyed some of the movies moments, particularly the scenes related to the calendars. But on the whole, the mid-level managers reminded me of a Japanese supervisor I once had in a company I worked in, in Silicon Valley. I was once staying late, doing bench work when a white mid-level manager was showing the building and workspace to a visitor. At some point, the mid-level manager asked if anyone had a thermometer. This was a singularly odd request, but I just so happened to have one so I offered it to him. Instead of being grateful, or even giving me a polite "thank you", he icily told me it wasn't calibrated.??? The next day, my jap supervisor called me into his office and erupted in rage over my "transgression" the day before with Don, the obnoxious impolite imbecile who was angry because I didn't give him a thermometer that came out of Apollo's as s. Perhaps I should have shoved it up his own. In any event, I came within an inch of being fired, but it was only my absolute self-control that defused the situation with these two losers, Vic and Don. Vic finally resigned, hopefully he reviewed his life and realizing it was meaningless, he opted for early suicide. Don still works for the company.As someone else has commented, it's a mindset such as the one revealed in this film that explains why the economy of that country is essentially in the toilet. Because it belongs there. Perhaps also, it is time for those wonderful figures from Japanese mythology, the fat man and the little boy, to visit them again.

One minute I was working in the UK. Then a lucrative job advert, a 30 minute interview, and a few days later I found myself in a huge office in Belgium. So I find myself in a foreign country where I know nobody at all. At least however there already some British co-workers. I still remember my bewilderment in the evenings watching all these thousands of people driving, catching buses to destinations I'd never heard of, ALL knowing where they going me; only me totally confused. But that was obviously NOTHING like the cultural shock that Amelie experienced and kept on experiencing. We just loved this film, you just felt you were there. Please more comments on it by Japanese.

Hi all, I've watched this movie and enjoyed it as a Japanese born in Tokyo and lived there for ~30 years (though my wife, also Japanese, was p***ed off.;-) Just a short comment on questions like "can this be real?" - my answer is clear and obvious "no". It could possibly happen to _Japanese_ female employees in a few nasty companies 30 years ago, but is simply impossible to "Westerners" as they are specially respected. Whether this is good or bad is another question.By the way, some of the text appearing at the official web site (http://www.cinemaguild.com/fearandtrembling/) as background decoration actually looks like Korean or something. It is definitely not Japanese. I'm not talking about the Katakana characters outside the flash window, but the white background inside the flash window itself, though it is very hard to see on some monitors.