tenshi_ippikiookami "After the Storm" is another great Hirokazu Koreeda movie. It is touching, it gives time to the characters and the plot to breathe and develop, and it gives food for thought. And all in a movie that doesn't try to over-complicate things.Ryôta is a failure. He started as a writer, published a book that got an award, and married and had a child. However, nowadays he just believes he writes, he's divorced, with a non-existent relationship with his son. He also tries to steal money from his mother. On top of that, he uses his 'job' in a detective's agency to extort people and to stalk his ex-wife. And all the money he gets he loses on bets or pachinko.What we get from here is Ryôta and his relationships with the people that surround him. And Koreeda does a great job in creating great moments from little moments. It helps that the plot keeps things straightforward but non-stop and that he has surrounded himself with great actors, from the always amazing Hiroshi Abe to funny and ironic Kirin Kiki. Just having the actors delivering the lines and their banter make for a great time. And it doesn't forget the more serious moments, as Ryôta's problems with gambling or his inability to deliver on the responsibilities and decisions he takes.Totally worth checking out.

politic1983 While not yet proving to be quite as prolific as the great masters Ozu, Mizoguchi and Naruse at their most busy, there is becoming something routine about another year and another trip to Cannes for perhaps Japan's best current working director, Kore-eda Hirokazu. There is a clear progression from his bleakly haunting first three films, 'Maborosi', 'After Life' and 'Distance' to a more routine playground of 'shomin-geki' (lower-middle class family drama), moving from more complex ennui to a more mainstream exploration of various unusual family scenarios. 'After the Storm', the most recent lover he took with him to southern France, certainly feels like a follow-on from his previous works 'Still Walking' and 'Kiseki'. Here, the family get-together of 'Still Walking' is replaced by the impromptu night-in to weather the storm, with Kirin Kiki and Hiroshi Abe reprising their roles as mother and prodigal son; and 'Kiseki's' Koichi is replaced by Abe's Ryota: a grown man who can't move on from his divorce from his wife and son, Kyoko and Shingo. With the cast also featuring other now established Kore-eda 'family' members, in the form of Lili Franky and Yoko Maki, this could all start to feel a little too familiar. Though he would not be the first great director to embrace this approach.Suitably unshaven, Ryota is a recent divorcée, struggling to come to terms with his new position. A former novelist, enjoying some minor success with his novel 'The Empty Table' fifteen years previous, he now finds himself working as a private detective, betraying the trust of both his boss and untrustworthy clients; gambling heavily, living alone. Not only losing his wife and son, he has lost the respect of others, and even himself. His ex-wife can't rely on him to pay child support; his sister believes he is only after their mother's meagre funds; and his boss knows he is moonlighting behind his back. The only ones showing any positivity towards him are his mother, in the form of witty banter about how useless he has become, much like his father; his work colleague, Kento, who begrudgingly lends him money to gamble away; and his son, whose indifference to him is as good as he can get. His attempts to win Kyoko and Shingo back, in his sly, underhand manner, therefore, are never going to work. By purposefully taking Shingo to his mother's small apartment as a typhoon approaches , he hopes to lure Kyoko to spend the night as a family with his deceit, unable to grasp that it is acts such as this that pushed her away in the first place. He is a man above his station, and in pursuing his second novel, that everyone can see will never happen, turns down lucrative offers to write more mainstream manga, as he believes it compromises his artistic integrity which died long ago. His profession now to watch others, Ryota has become completely unaware of himself and the impact of his actions on those around him. Playing the victim, he is never the bad guy. Comparisons are often made to his father, harking to Kore-eda's previous title 'Like Father, Like Son'. Kyoko can see the future she would be offered with Ryota, in the form of her former mother-in-law's cramped apartment where she is forced to spend the night: As an elderly woman, left alone and near penniless by her husband's rash actions. Whereas Ryota can only see the past. Eventually realising that he is only deceiving himself (urgh, I just wrote that!), as the storm passes and the fresh morning awakes, he starts to come to terms with this. This may all seem quite obvious and light, wondering if Kore-eda has lost a bit of spark, getting too comfortable in his work. And indeed, you may wish for a more dark perspective as in his earlier days. But the realism holds, and the wit of the script raises a smile. The cast perform their roles in a way that is believable, avoiding soap opera clichés and social stereotypes; and the stark soundtrack steers it away from melodrama.Yes, this is more of the same, but in the same way that Ozu remade his own 'Late Spring' with 'An Autumn Afternoon'. The formula is working, and with enough bite to keep it away from the daytime TV nicety, ensuring that the familial isn't too familiar just yet. politic1983.blogspot.co.uk

Gordon-11 This film tells the story of a failing novelist who turns to be a private detective to make ends meet. He has a gambling problem unfortunately, therefore his salary goes to gambling instead of child support. His ex wife is less than happy, and threatens to stop monthly visits if he doesn't pay.The story is slow and uneventful, even though a storm is approaching. Viewers get a glimpse of the novelist's failing life, and it can be seen that he still lives in his pride from his award winning novel from over a decade ago. His interpersonal relationships are quite messed up, as he alienated his family members with his previous financial failures. On one hand, I do wish that his life will pick up and be great again, but on the other hand, I can't really care less. Most of the screen time, especially towards the end, I just wished​ the film would end soon because I was quite bored.

fanbaz-549-872209 Hard to find anything to say in favor for this two hour long, badly acted and poorly directed offering. I would like to because I saw it with the director sitting more or less next to me and he spoke for a while before the showing, and seems a nice chap. But his movie was nothing more than a soap opera. The lead had a couple of faces he pulled. Sad. Perplexed. That was his limit as far as acting goes. His old mum played at being an old mum and the ex wife went through the routine of the ex wife, who might or might not still love the hubby. And please don't get fooled like me. This film has nothing to do with a detective. Or an author. That's just the press trying to get you interested because detectives are good box office. The director, to make things worse, has only four shots. Mid shot with actors in the foreground talking to actors behind without looking round. Close ups of inanimate objects. A pan of soup. A cup of tea. Then into a close up of a head about to say something 'important'. And exterior shots where actors stand facing the camera and talk and talk and talk. And there is a lot of talking. But nothing gets said. This movie had the same effect on me being forced to listen to someone talking non stop on their cell phone. I don't buy different countries have their own way of doing things. Outside Hollywood, the rest of the world have a common approach to movie making. This film fails miserably to reach any of the standards set by this common community.