Note: Spoilers For Perfume “Cold Sleep” 25 Years Document Follow
Perfume “Cold Sleep” 25 Years Document As 25 Years Document
Do not come into this documentary about electro-pop trio Perfume expecting a comprehensive look into the outfit’s history. Despite what the title implies, this film more accurately covers about 11 years in the lives of Yuka Kashino (Kashiyuka), Ayaka Nishiwaki (A-chan) and Ayano Omoto (Nocchi). The bulk of that focuses on their first decade together as a pop unit, offering an overview of how they went from fledgling Hiroshima-area idols to a project selling out Tokyo Dome.
The 14-ish years after, meanwhile, zip by in montage form, offering quick reminders of the music put out and live performances put on, including multiple world tours. However, Cold Sleep jumps ahead to 2025 in order to capture preparations for a pair of Tokyo Dome performances scheduled for that September.
Those unfamiliar with the group might not get it right away, but for those who know, this all makes sense and gets at the central point of the film.
Perfume “Cold Sleep” 25 Years Document As 2025 Document
Cold Sleep is actually about how that 25 year career paused, with the past presented serving as an emotional tie to this pivotal moment in Perfume’s career.
The heart of this documentary unspools just how the trio came to this decision, starting with early Tokyo Dome prep in June of last year before the idea of taking an extended break starts creeping up. Once they agree to do that, Cold Sleep follows Perfume as they perform at Tokyo Dome one last time and the assorted activities they do before officially entering the titular sleep come 2026. That’s bordered by interviews with the members where they go over their careers…and what it means to live, adding a weightier vibe to this farewell.
Here’s where Cold Sleep excels, and serves as a must-see work for any fan of Perfume wanting to get a better picture of how their current “cold sleep” came to be. Based on comments from the members and director Sado Taketoshi, this movie started filming in 2019 and was just supposed to be a relatively straight-ahead work celebrating the group’s 25th anniversary. Yet along the way the members decided to change the project up, and Cold Sleep captures how they settled on this.
As a timeline, Cold Sleep provides clarity. The big reveal to take from this movie is that member A-chan decided to get married before the break decision was made, revealed in an early scene offering a peek into Perfume behind the scenes. From there, the group holds a variety of meetings with one another and long-time choreographer Mikiko about the state the group finds themselves in and how they feel, leading to the four crafting the official announcement…which they share suddenly with staff shortly before it goes live, in the most emotional moment of the movie. From there it’s a document of Perfume’s last months together before “cold sleep,” culminating in a last Tokyo Dome show and ending with an appearance on national broadcaster NHK’s “Kohaku Uta Gassen” year-end music show (presented earlier as the other major domestic milestone for the trio).
Viewers need to already be invested in Perfume for any of this to really connect — the importance of the group to modern J-pop and even the wider reaction to the “cold sleep” announcement last September aren’t detailed, but rather understood to be something one gets before sitting down. Yet if you do, you get a rare glimpse behind the J-pop curtain to see how performers operate, and one giving fans some insight.
Perfume “Cold Sleep” 25 Years Document As Fan-Service Document
Sure, someone completely unfamiliar with Perfume is going to get lost pretty quickly with this one, but the initial history portion lays out pretty well just how surprising the trio’s rise was. It also provides a lot of fan-pleasing footage of Perfume’s pre-”Polyrhythm” adventures, which are always a treat. Here they are performing in a mall to half-interested customers! Here they are dressed as weird colorful cowboys! Here’s the brief period where they tried to actually play synthesizers live and had Nocchi drumming! There’s also higher-resolution footage of their very first Hiroshima-area single, a true rarity.
Perfume “Cold Sleep” 25 Years Document As Tokyo-Dome-Concert Document
One area Cold Sleep mostly ignores is the music of Perfume. Again, this is a fan-centric documentary so perhaps it would be unnecessary to walk through the finer points of electro-pop to theater-goers, but it’s almost comically absent from it too. Final album Nebula Romance exists mostly as live visuals, while producer Yasutaka Nakata only pops up in brief mentions, otherwise a ghost here. Near the end we get footage of Perfume recording vocals for movie tie-up song “Cold Sleep,” but the way that’s presented makes it look like it took less than 10 minutes for them to do their part.
Now, if you want a great look into how the performance of Perfume comes together, Cold Sleep delivers in showing just how much effort is required to make a show at Tokyo Dome happen. It’s also pretty educational — I have never considered the question “where do artists practice for their Tokyo Dome shows, since you can’t just rent it out for a week?” Perfume gives an answer here which is “the Nipro Hachiko Dome in Akita Prefecture.” There’s also shots of the actual operations during the concert itself, showing the labyrinthian stage design in all its wonder. Genuinely educational!
Perfume “Cold Sleep” 25 Years Document As Emotional Document
I fully expected Cold Sleep to be an emotional punch to the face. If not clear from the above, I’m a Perfume fan so I went into this mostly wanting to feel a touch nostalgic about them and those Tokyo Dome shows from last September. Mission accomplished, as the same familiar feelings of experiencing the “cold sleep” announcement came back to me multiple times, as did the whirlwind experience of watching their last live shows for the time being, split between joy and sadness for it ending at least for a while.
Yet the true success of Cold Sleep as fan-facing emotional document is what comes after Kohaku. The film gives us a peak into the lives of Perfume’s members after the break starts, and even as they go about largely mundane happenings — though, in what might be the most thrilling surprise for supporters, we get footage of Kashiyuka cutting her hair — there’s a sense of joy as they navigate a new chapter of their own lives.
What I expected to be pure melancholy ended with warmth, not for Perfume the musical project for the individuals who made it such an important outfit. That’s the nicest souvenir Cold Sleep could give fans.
