The prospect of a film entitled Dolls from the superlative, ultra-violent Kitano (Violent Cop, Hana Bi) may understandably conjure up visions of Barbie and Cindy going at each other with pink plastic chainsaws and other assorted accessorised weaponry. Alas, such colour coordinated butchery is absent, and instead Dolls sees the Japanese director return to the same territory explored in Hana Bi, minus the oceanic levels of bloodshed and the gargantuan bodycount.

What’s left without the gore, you may rightly enquire? Well, the same demented, tragicomic melancholia to be found within the pages of pretty much everything written by Thom Yorke-favourite, Haruki Murakami, interwoven with traditional Japanese artefacts, such as Bunraki theatre, Noh drums, plus skyfulls of hanging cherry blossoms.

Three separate narrative strands are linked using the performance of Monzaemon Chikamatsu (the Japanese Shakespeare) tragedy – Miho Kanno loses the plot when she’s dumped by fiance Hidetoshi Nishijima in favour of a better-heeled bird. But after witnessing the catatonic, armchair-chewing state that his heartbroken ex is reduced to, oppressive guilt kicks in and inspires Hidetoshi to permanantly tether her to him with a red cord (Yep, it’s that kind of movie).

Elsewhere, ageing Yakuza Tatsuya Mihashi is drifting towards wistful senility and wondering whatever happened to the sweetheart of his youth, while obsessive fan-boy Tsutomu Takeshige goes to such horrific extremes to meet a now reclusive pop-idol that he makes your average psycho-stalker look like a girlish, knicker-throwing Gareth Gates acolyte.

Suffice to say, none of the characters are exactly partying-down by the end, and thrill-seekers and car-chase compulsives should avoid this like asbestos on toast. Kitano is often refered to as the Japanese Clint Eastwood, and maybe this is his Bridges Of Madison County. To be fair, Dolls is happily devoid of Bridges’ twee factor, and its impossibly gorgeous design is far from the oppressively dreary Mid-West, but the languid pace and weighty tone are undeniably similar.

Of course, Clint and Meryl never got around to any masochistic tethering stuff (thankfully).
If then, the prospect of heavy-duty romantic ironies and unprozacable sadness doesn’t fill you with mortal dread, there’s plenty to savour in this lush lamentation for star-crossed love.