Ovation, No Prize for Kikuchi at Cannes

Japanese contenders have come away empty handed from this year's Cannes Film Festival. Koreeda Hirokazu's "Kuki Ningyo" (Air Doll), about a video store clerk falling for an inflatable female doll, was shown in the Un Certain Regard category but failed to take the prize. There were no Japanese entries this year in the main competition category. But "Map of the Sounds of Tokyo," a Spanish film directed by Isabel Coixet and starring Sergi Lopez (photo left) and Kikuchi Rinko (photo right), got a rapturous response from the audience when it was shown at the main theater on Saturday. Kikuchi, at Cannes for the first time since the release of "Babel" in 2006, was in tears as the film got a 5-minute standing ovation. "I was cool watching it part way through, but memories of the filming started coming back to me. It was a tough movie for me." Set in Tokyo, the movie features both English and Japanese dialog. Kikuchi plays a fish market worker who's an assassin on the side.