Sightlines · reception
How After the Storm was received
2016 · Hirokazu Kore-eda · After the Storm on Sightlines
The arc
It premiered quietly in Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2016 and was widely filed as 'minor Kore-eda' — lovely, low-stakes, familiar. Post-Shoplifters, it's been steadily reappraised, with plenty of devotees now calling it one of his very best.
What’s debated
The perennial Kore-eda fight: is 'minor Kore-eda' actually peak Kore-eda — do these small, uneventful family films outrank his prize-winners?
Its footprint
Kirin Kiki's musing about why men can't love the present — always chasing what they've lost or dreaming beyond their reach — is the film's endlessly screenshotted, review-opening quote.
Where it stands
A quiet canon-climber in the Kore-eda family-drama pantheon, cherished as the spiritual companion piece to Still Walking (same house-visit rhythm, same Abe–Kiki pairing).
Did you know? Kore-eda shot the film in the actual Kiyose housing complex (danchi) on the outskirts of Tokyo where he himself grew up from the age of nine — and the Japanese title, 'Umi yori mo mada fukaku' ('Even deeper than the sea'), is a lyric from the Teresa Teng song heard in the film.