After Life (film)

Infobox Film
name = After Life


caption = U.S. DVD Cover
imdb_rating =
director = Hirokazu Koreeda
producer = Masayuki Akieda
Shiho Sato
writer = Hirokazu Koreeda
starring = Arata
Erika Oda
Susumu Terajima
Takashi Naito
Kei Tani
music = Yasuhiro Kasamatsu
cinematography = Yutaka Yamazaki
editing = Hirokazu Koreeda
distributor =
released = September 11, 1998 (Toronto Film Festival) [ [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0165078/releaseinfo Wandâfuru raifu (1998) - Release dates ] ]
April 17, 1999 (Japan)
runtime = 118 min.
country = Japan
language = Japanese
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
amg_id = 1:173451
imdb_id = 0165078nihongo|"After Life"|ワンダフルライフ|Wandafuru Raifu|extra= lit. "Wonderful Life" is a 1998 film by Japanese director Koreeda Hirokazu starring Arata, Oda Erika and Terajima Susumu.

Plot summary

Like Giuseppe Tornatore's "A Pure Formality", Koreeda's "After Life" is set in a waystation where the souls of the recently deceased are processed before entering heaven. "Heaven," for the film, is a single memory from one's life.

The movie is set in a structure resembling a decrepit travel lodge or social services institution. A group of people who have just died check in at the beginning of each week, and the "social workers" resident in the lodge explain to each guest their situation. The newly-dead have until Wednesday to decide what the single happiest or most significant memory from their life is, and then for the rest of the week the workers make short movies to recreate each person's chosen memory.

At the end of the week, the movies are shown in the screening room. As soon as each person sees his or her own memory, he or she vanishes to whatever unknown state of existence lies beyond and takes only that single memory with them into eternity.

The story revolves around two of the counselors, Takashi (Arata) and Shiori (Oda). Takashi has been assigned to help an old man, Ichiro (played by Naito Taketoshi), select his memory. Takashi reviews videotape of Ichiro's life and learns that Ichiro had married Takashi's former fiancée after Takashi had been killed during World War II. Takashi has Ichiro assigned to another counselor, but is still troubled by his memories, causing both him and his quasi-romantic interest Shiori to re-examine their (after-) lives.

Koreeda got his start directing television documentaries for TV Man Union. Much of the action in "After Life" is shown as interviews conducted with the recently deceased regarding their lives. Some of these interviews were scripted, but many were done , with real people (not actors) reminiscing about their own lives.

Cast

*Takashi Mochizuki - Arata
*Shiori Satonaka - Erika Oda
*Satoru Kawashima - Susumu Terajima
*Takuro Sugie - Takashi Naito
*Kyoko Watanabe "(Ichiro's Wife)" - Kyoko Kagawa
*Kennosuke Nakamura - Kei Tani
*Ichiro Watanabe - Taketoshi Naito
*Gisuke Shoda - Toru Yuri
*Yusuke Iseya - Yusuke Iseya
*Kana Yoshino - Sayaka Yoshino
*Nobuko Amano - Kazuko Shirakawa
*Kenji Yamamoto - Kotaro Shiga
*Kiyo Nishimura - Hisako Hara
*Ichiro "(as young man)" - Sadao Abe
*Kyoko Watanabe "(as young woman)" - Natsuo Ishido

References

External links

*imdb title|id=0165078|title=After Life
*Reviews
* [http://nipponcinema.com/db/review/after_life Nippon Cinema]
*