After the Storm · reception & legacy

2016 · Hirokazu Kore-eda

How After the Storm has been received, argued over, and remembered.

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.