MOVIES

Movie Data

English title: After the Storm
Original title: 海よりもまだ深く Umi yori mo mada fukaku - Still deeper than the sea
Published: 2016
Length: 117 minutes

Staff
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Script: Hirokazu Koreeda
Music: Hanaregumi

Cast
Hiroshi Abe: Ryōta Shinoda
Kirin Kiki: Yoshiko Shinoda
Yōko Maki: Kyōko Shiraishi
Satomi Kobayashi: Chinatsu Shinoda
Taiyō Yoshizawa: Shingo Shiraishi

Plot

The writer Ryōta Shinoda, once a promising talent, no longer writes. He works as a private detective and gambles away his money. After the death of his equally unreliable father, his mother Yoshiko leads a happier life with her elderly friends. Ryōta and his sister Chinatsu vie for financial support from their mother. Kyōko, Ryōta's ex-wife, wants to forbid him from contact with his eleven-year-old son Shingo, as he is in arrears with the alimony payments. When Ryōta, along with his son and ex, has to stay at his mother's during a typhoon, he has a chance to get his life under control again.
The title of the film "Still deeper than the sea" comes from the song "Wakare no Yokan" (Premonition of a Farewell, 1987) by the popular Asian singer Teresa Teng (1953-1995). It is the favorite song of Ryōta's mother.
The director Koreeda conceived the film in 2001 when he was visiting his mother, who lived alone in a residential complex after the death of his father.

Critics

"The film transcends cultural boundaries to provide timeless observations of parental responsibility, personal bonds, and the ability to forgive."
"A classic Japanese family drama of gentle conviction and breathtaking simplicity, which is wonderfully balanced between gentle comedy and the melancholic reality of how people really are. You can't always have the life you want and you can't always be who you want to be."