Plantiana Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

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.

Ruben Mooijman In a relatively short time span, I've seen three films by Hirokazu Kore-Eda, and I'm planning to see many more. It seems most of his work is focused on family relations, and his films are touching, heartfelt real life dramas. The raw material for Kore-Eda's films are emotions, and the ways his protagonists express them in words and by their behaviour.Like the two other films I've seen ('Our Little Sister' and 'Like Father, Like Son'), 'After the Storm' deals with parents, children, grandchildren and siblings. In this case, the central character is a divorced writer with financial problems, who has taken a job as a private detective to make ends meet. To keep up appearances, he pretends the job is a way of doing research for a new novel, but everyone knows there is no book.His young son is very fond of his grandma, so they go visit her. But typhoon number 24 is approaching fast, and when the writer's ex-wife comes to the apartment to pick up the boy, the bad weather conditions prevent them from going home. They have to spend the night at the grandmother's house, just as if they were a normal family. And in a way, they almost are, during that one special night. After the storm, everything has returned to normal, except that the four of them are closer than they were before. The last shot is full of symbolism: the sun shines, but several broken and abandoned umbrellas are the witnesses of the stormy night.It takes superior film making skills to turn such a story into a good movie. The emotions have to be measured out with care, in order to prevent it from turning into a tearjerker. The dialogue has to be natural, but at the same time not superficial. And the actors have to be completely believable. Just leave it to Kore-Eda: every scene is a joy to watch. It's those little things that make his characters so real: when his mother starts pleading him to stay the night, the writer says: oh, mother, please don't use this voice like you're almost dying. These are exactly the things mothers and sons say to each other, with a mix of affection and irritation.The director also gives little hints and references which you only fully understand after a while. At the very beginning, the writer's mother remarks that a neighbour has moved to a bigger house. Only much later we learn that this has always been her own dream, and that she's tired of her own tiny apartment. I think it takes a second viewing to get all the tiny hints sprinkled throughout the story.Are we what we hoped to be? And what was it exactly we hoped to be? Those are the questions 'After the Storm' deals with. There are no clear cut answers. But thinking about the questions makes this film worthwhile.

Muhammad Zunair In modern times, foreign language movies have made a huge and long lasting impression on cinema and have pulled many viewers towards them. With movies such as Children of Heaven, A Separation, The lives of others and Incendies, foreign cinema has contributed a lot to the film industry. Iranian and Japanese cinemas, in specific, have amazed us with some masterpieces in the past. After the Storm is one of many Japanese movies which not only have entertained us with its solid screenplay but have also raised a lot of questions to put our minds to some exercise. After the Storm, directed by Hirokazu Koreeda, circles around a private detective who loses his money in gambling and then struggles to pay child support money. He undergoes several problems and issues to reconnect with his son and ex-wife. Hirokazu have made some very good movies in the past such as Nobody Knows and After Life but After the Storm is the best of his work. The movie doesn't include any major plot twist rather it's entirely based on family dynamics and it's a domestic melodrama, filled with emotional speeches and ferocious acts of parental selfishness. Ryota, the lead character, works for a private detective agency and has a son but after the death of his father he seems to have lost the control of his life, wastes all his money on racing tracks and ends up as same kind of father as the man who raised him. His ex-wife Kyoke is also shown as a confused individual who is worried about her future prospects and Shingo, his son, seems to be on the same path of uncertainty and struggle as his parents. The best thing I have extracted from the movie is the idea that there are so many things of great value in our life but we never realize their true significance till we lost them. It also reminds us that nothing is more important than the moment you are currently in. Koreeda's After the Storm is slow-paced, sad and apologetic. The movie questions one of the basic human behavior that how to move forward amidst all the frustration and loss and leaves it to the viewers to find their own answer. The character of Ryota tells us a lot about how time can change so drastically and how things go wrong for you all at once. A former prize winner for his novel ends up as a failure to his own self, to his son and his family. But life isn't about giving up rather it's about standing up every time it tries to keep you down. And Ryota tries to overcome his loss although he falls short every time. The movie tells us that even if we lose control of our lives we can take it back, it's all about our attitude towards our loss. Life demands a lot from us, sometimes it tests our resolution and calls for our persistence because we can try for what we want, but achieving it not easy as it is exhibited by Hirokazu through his masterpiece. After the Storm is about the intimate struggle of moving forward and brings forward the lesson of keep on trying, no matter how hard the life is, because you can only achieve when you're ready to endure the pain beyond your limits. What is lost can be won again, it's only the matter of belief and grit. Screenplay of After the Storm is beyond any admiration as Hirozaku has beautifully portrayed the life of a common man and have magnificently summed up the struggle of moving forward in this life. The story doesn't have any loopholes in it, it connects the characters with such perfection that viewers never lose the plot. It binds its viewers with such strong force that make them able to both enjoy the movie and listen to the truth the movie speaks. Although the direction of the movie is flawless but its screenplay has come out as the most promising production element. Above discussion can be concluded with the biggest truth we learn from the movie, life is less about getting what you want than it is wanting what you get.

Blue Cloud Most films these days do not have something to 'say' anymore. They don't have a deeper meaning. And if they do, it's mostly superficial or so complex you don't really understand. 'After the Storm' by Hirokuzu Kore-eda has something to say, it's like a condensed moment of life. You will be dumbstruck by it's beauty.The story deals with Ryota, struggling with financial problems, and trying to keep contact with his son after divorcement. He works as a private detective, spying on affairs and looking for lost cats while his real passion lies in writing literature.The entire film is built around a central story part where they take shelter from a taifun, it involves scenes of such profound beauty, you will be moved to tears. The beauty lies in the things that are not spoken out, yet linger in the air like rain: the missed opportunities to be happy, love gone by and yet - still there.To say the film deals with abandoned dreams in the face of reality is wrong, it's the contrary. The film says: If you keep waiting for beauty in life, you will not realize that it has already arrived. Just not the way you thought it would.