With Millennium Actress, Kon delivered a love letter to post-war Japanese cinema, which also serves as a poignant reflection on the role cinema plays in our lives.

Satoshi Kon directed only four feature films before he died in 2010, and Millennium Actress (2001) is his most subtle. Loosely based on the lives of actresses Setsuko Hara (1920-2015) and Hideko Takamine (1924-2010), the film features a documentary film crew interviewing retired acting legend Chiyoko Fujiwara. As Chiyoko tells her life story, private life, history and cinema become intertwined, resulting in a unique cinematic experience.

Unlike the previous film, Kon was given much more creative freedom for Millennium Actress, including hiring composer Susumu Hirasawa, whom he had long admired, to create the music for the film. As Kon later recounted, the original idea for Millennium Actress came from his conversation with producer Taro Maki that they wanted to make a film that resembled a trompe l'oeil, a very convincing optical illusion.