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is a 2017 Japanese
science fiction film Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses Speculative fiction, speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as Extraterrestrial life in fiction, extraterrestria ...
directed by
Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a Japanese film director, screenwriter, film critic, author, actor, and a former professor at Tokyo University of the Arts (2005-2023). Noted for his psychological films that often focus on ambiguous narratives and on their characters' i ...
. It is based on a stage play by Tomohiro Maekawa's Ikiume Theatre Company and the novel adaptation written by Maekawa. It stars
Masami Nagasawa is a Japanese actress. She has had a prolific film career since her teenage years and has starred in various blockbusters, receiving multiple #Awards and nominations, accolades, including five Japan Academy Film Prize, Japan Academy Film Prizes a ...
,
Ryuhei Matsuda is a Japanese film and television actor. Matsuda's best known film roles include the young and desirable samurai Sōzaburō Kanō in ''Taboo'' and the rock star Ren Honjo in '' Nana''. Early life Matsuda was born on 9 May 1983 in Tokyo, to Yū ...
,
Mahiro Takasugi is a Japanese actor who is affiliated with Posters. Career Takasugi was scouted by chance at a fireworks display held in Kumamoto Prefecture. In 2009, he debuted in the stage play, ''Every Little Thing '09'' and in 2010 he made his film debut in ...
, Yuri Tsunematsu, and
Hiroki Hasegawa , nicknamed , (born March 7, 1977, in Tokyo) is a Japanese stage, film, and television actor. Trained as a stage actor at the Bungaku-za after graduating from Chuo University, he first began to appear on Japanese TV in small roles in 2008, and t ...
. ''Before We Vanish'' earned two nominations at the 41st Japanese Academy Film Prize. The film had its world premiere in competition at the
Un Certain Regard (; 'A Certain Glance') is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's official selection. It is run at the Debussy, parallel to the competition for the . This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob. The section presents 20 films with unusua ...
section of the
2017 Cannes Film Festival The 70th Cannes Film Festival took place from 17 to 28 May 2017, in Cannes, France. Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar was the president of the jury for the main competition. Italian actress Monica Bellucci hosted the opening and closing cerem ...
on 21 May 2017. The film also received an award at the
Sitges Film Festival SITGES - International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia () is an annual film festival held in Sitges, Catalonia, Spain. It specializes in fantasy film, fantasy, Horror film, horror and Cult film, cult films. Established in 1968, the festiva ...
 – Official Selection.


Plot

An alien in the form of a schoolgirl named Akira (Yuri Tsunematsu) apparently kills her family, then walks carelessly down the middle of a street, causing an evading semi to overturn. A second alien has taken over the body of a man, Shinji (
Ryuhei Matsuda is a Japanese film and television actor. Matsuda's best known film roles include the young and desirable samurai Sōzaburō Kanō in ''Taboo'' and the rock star Ren Honjo in '' Nana''. Early life Matsuda was born on 9 May 1983 in Tokyo, to Yū ...
), whose wife Narumi (
Masami Nagasawa is a Japanese actress. She has had a prolific film career since her teenage years and has starred in various blockbusters, receiving multiple #Awards and nominations, accolades, including five Japan Academy Film Prize, Japan Academy Film Prizes a ...
) is flustered by the profound changes to his personality. He asks her to guide him. A third alien has taken over the body of a teenage boy, Amano (
Mahiro Takasugi is a Japanese actor who is affiliated with Posters. Career Takasugi was scouted by chance at a fireworks display held in Kumamoto Prefecture. In 2009, he debuted in the stage play, ''Every Little Thing '09'' and in 2010 he made his film debut in ...
). He connects with a freelance journalist, Sakurai (
Hiroki Hasegawa , nicknamed , (born March 7, 1977, in Tokyo) is a Japanese stage, film, and television actor. Trained as a stage actor at the Bungaku-za after graduating from Chuo University, he first began to appear on Japanese TV in small roles in 2008, and t ...
), who becomes his guide. Amano admits to Sakurai that he is an alien, and Sakurai eventually believes and assists him. The aliens do not threaten their guides. Amano and Sakurai ultimately track down Akira. The three travel together, although Sakurai is disturbed by Akira's violence. The aliens are advanced scouts for a mass invasion of Earth. To learn how humans live and think, they steal themes or philosophical concepts from humans, who then can no longer understand them. Thus, alien Amano takes "freedom" from human Amano's parents and they become servile. Shinji takes "family" from Narumi's sister, who leaves while telling Narumi to back off. He later takes "possession" from a young shut-in, who proceeds to go out in the world as an advocate against materialism. Alien Shinji becomes, in many respects, a better husband to Narumi. "Shinji is broken," he says to Narumi, "I'll rebuild him." Government authorities are working to locate Akira, claiming to the public and Sakurai that she's a spreader of a dangerous new virus. A state of emergency is declared, with the SDF becoming involved. Meanwhile, Amano and Akira must meet with Shinji to trigger the start of the invasion. Sakurai initially works to prevent this, but after the human forms of the two young aliens are killed, he tries to initiate the invasion himself. Narumi invites Shinji to take "love" from her, and he does. He is overwhelmed by the feeling; he is surprised by how complicated "love" is. Meanwhile, Narumi no longer can feel emotion. Sakurai is dead after the attack from war plane. At the same time, Narumi and Shinji arrive at the hill where they can see the ocean. Suddenly, aliens start invading to the earth, and attack Narumi and Shinji, but they survive. The invasion is called off. Two months later, aliens have retreated from Earth, and many humans have survived. However, many people have lost the concept of who they are, and have lasting physical and mental damage that has no clear way to cure. Shinji was found to be working for the relief effort at the film's end while Narumi was hospitalized because she had lost the concept of love and all related emotions. Shinji said that the invasion stopped because the aliens learned from the humans. The relief doctor noted that at the time of the invasion humans faced many serious problems of their own making that no longer as a positive result of the Alien invasion.


Cast


Production

The production was conducted from the end of July to August 2016. Filming took place in
Ibaraki Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Ibaraki Prefecture has a population of 2,828,086 (1 July 2023) and has a geographic area of . Ibaraki Prefecture borders Fukushima Prefecture to the north, ...
,
Tochigi Prefecture is a landlocked Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Tochigi Prefecture has a population of 1,897,649 (1 June 2023) and has a geographic area of 6,408 Square kilometre, km2 (2,474 Square mile, sq mi ...
,
Saitama Prefecture is a Landlocked country, landlocked Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Saitama Prefecture has a population of 7,338,536 (January 1, 2020) and has a geographic area of 3,797 Square kilometre, km2 ( ...
,
Shizuoka Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Shizuoka Prefecture has a population of 3,555,818 and has a geographic area of . Shizuoka Prefecture borders Kanagawa Prefecture to the east, Yamanashi Pref ...
, and
Kanagawa Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the List of Japanese prefectures by population, second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-dens ...
. In Tochigi Prefecture, they used an abandoned factory as the survival game field appearing at the end of film. Additionally, in the end of August 2016, they used Kirin Beer factory as the wasteland. The home where Narumi and Shinji lived was shot on location. Production designer, Ataka Norifumi, said that he put many diagonal lines or shapes on the inside of the house on purpose so that it could imply the awkwardness between Narumi and Shinji. Also, he mentioned that he took away warmer tone colors so that audience can see the low energy of the couple. Akiko Ashizawa, Director of Photography, chose to shoot on Arri Alexa XT Plus with anamorphic lens.


Music

The original soundtrack album was released on 6 September 2017 from Pony Canyon label. The soundtrack has 26 songs.


Release

The film had its world premiere in the
Un Certain Regard (; 'A Certain Glance') is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's official selection. It is run at the Debussy, parallel to the competition for the . This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob. The section presents 20 films with unusua ...
section at the
2017 Cannes Film Festival The 70th Cannes Film Festival took place from 17 to 28 May 2017, in Cannes, France. Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar was the president of the jury for the main competition. Italian actress Monica Bellucci hosted the opening and closing cerem ...
on 21 May 2017. It was released in Japan on 9 September 2017.


Reception


Box office

In Japan, the film made $448,829 in its opening weekend.


Critics

On
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
, the film has an approval rating of 79%, based on 48 reviews, and an average rating of 6.48/10. The website's critical consensus states, "''Before We Vanish'' finds Kiyoshi Kurosawa working within well-established genre guidelines to take a poignant, surprisingly sincere look at the human condition." On
Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, which assigns a normalized rating, the film has a score 64 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Stephen Dalton of ''
The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...
'' said, "Perpetually shifting gear between playful sci-fi pastiche, quirky rom-com and apocalyptic thriller, ''Before We Vanish'' might have worked better as a single dedicated genre, but it becomes a little scrambled trying to cover several at once." Hollywood Reporter gave a harsh critique on this film. He also pointed out its running time. He said it could have been shorter based on the plot events of the film. Its long duration created by director Kurosawa just led the audience to be impatient, and lost the suspense. Inconsistent elements can be seen in the film, he wrote; lack of explanation about Sakurai’s motivation for offering his body to the alien, or Narumi’s motivation for taking care of her situation with her husband rather than saving the Earth. Lastly, he mentioned that last action sequences are too late to show though their visuals were spectacular. After all, they sum up the review with this sentence  “With the tonally incontinent Kurosawa at the helm, it is hard to tell which.” Meanwhile, Maggie Lee of ''
Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' said, "Playing frequently like an absurdist political satire with only flashes of violence, this low-tension, drawn-out work won't gratify the chills or adrenaline rushes fanboys crave, but the ending strikes a romantic chord so pure that all but the most jaded cynics will be moved." Simon Abrams wrote a review on Roger Ebert.com. He started off saying that 130 minutes running time is too long considering the amount of character development and plots of Alien invasion drama. He also mentioned that there is not much reasoning for the character's behavior. For example, towards the end of the film, human guides start building deeper connections with invaders, but sometimes clear reasons are not shown in the film.  However, he acclaimed Kurosawa’s direction for actors He pointed out that some people do not like the emotional flow happening in the movie, unnatural dialogue, lack of character development. After all, he recommends this film because of its unique concept that aliens try to steal concepts from humans. ''
RogerEbert.com ''RogerEbert.com'' is an American film review website that archives reviews written by film critic Roger Ebert for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' and also shares other critics' reviews and essays. The website, underwritten by the ''Chicago Sun-Times ...
'' gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, commenting that "its naive hopefulness is infectious, and its big ideas are captivating." Based on the review done b
Film Inquiry
''Before We Vanish'' gave a good impression. They gave high acclaims for the way Kurosawa directed the science fiction film. Specifics mentioned were the uniqueness of the young girl covered by blood, and violent visual images that referred to 1950s Science Fiction.They said “This extraterrestrial attempt at understanding human emotion through a series of concepts is a clever idea.” The plot of the film went over the expectations that viewers have towards standard science fiction films featuring aliens. However they pointed out that some critics thought the film duration could  have been cut shorter, though it is 130 minutes long; they thought some plot points were “needlessly drawn out”.


Accolades


Legacy

'' Foreboding'' was created as a spin-off of ''Before We Vanish''. It was released in theaters in Japan on 11 November 2017.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Before We Vanish 2017 films 2017 science fiction films 2010s Japanese films 2010s Japanese-language films Films directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa Films shot in Japan Japanese films based on plays Japanese science fiction films