Shoplifters (2018)

I think the reviews already sums up quite good how stunning this film is. In addition to extraordinary cinematographic work and music (!!!), Hirokazu Koreeda raises a lot of difficult, though important questions, leaving you thinking about your own moral values and the idea of a family. All wrapped up in a simple, well written and beautiful plot.

However, I would like to draw som more attention to Kirin Kiki and yet another one of her amazing interpretations. Only four months after the premier at Cannes, Kiki died, at the age of 75. In some strange way I get the sense that both Koreeda and Kiki somehow knew this was going to happen, during the creation of Shoplifters. It may sound far fetched, but keep it in mind while watching.

Fmovies: Imagine a movie that Hollywood can NEVER make:

NO CGI, NO celebreties, NO good or bad guys, NO must-have-a-black-dude-or-else, NO trying to make bull-t scenes good through epic music, NO cliche lines or scenes, NO silicone, NO gay propaganda, NO dog to save, NO american president to save, NO stealing ideas, NO superheroes, NO mentioning of the word "proud", NO telling the viewer what's right or wrong, NO part where you're forced to scream "yeah!"... NO bull!

That's the one.

But if you are now thinking "uh, but what's left then?" - maybe you shouldn't bother watching it. But I'll tell you what's left anyway - EVERYTHING. Everything that matters.

I am not trying to write a real review, and I can't understand people that are trying to re-tell the story or use quotes from the movie as header in their reviews.. The story doesn't really matter - it is not about the story, it is about what is missing in today's family. The movie is so original and great that if you don't watch it you have no chance of finding anything about what it really is.

A breathtaking display of realism, I'm in complete awe right now, Shoplifters tells a touching story that evokes so many emotions and it does it well, it's seemingly simple at first sight but it's so nuanced to a point where you'd find yourself expecting a certain ending, preferably happy, but this film sticks to realism and it dismantles the social norms with such grace to a point where it offers a new insight to a world unknown to most, where people long for family love and they're desperate to have someone to call family, I must admit that it made me tear up at certain times on account of the raw emotions it conveys. the acting here is marvelous, it's more of a team effort as every character completes another and ultimately form an arc that tells the story in a brilliant way. Shoplifters is a rare exercise of social realism, it gets its message across so elegantly, filmmaking at its finest.

Shoplifters fmovies. Hirokazu Kore-eda's The Third Murder (2017) left me cold and entertaining the notion that Kore-eda has lost his mojo. O ye of little faith, please forgive me... Shoplifters, fresh from being minted with the highest honour, the Palme d'Or, at this year's Cannes Film Festival, is Kore-eda back to being his emotionally devastating best. This ranks in the top tier of his outstanding output. If ever there is a film that can declare that sometimes, just sometimes, water can be thicker than blood, this is it.

Somewhere in Tokyo, Osamu Shibata (Lily Franky), his 'wife' Nobuyo (Sakura Ando) and 'daughter' Aki (Mayu Matsuoka) live in poverty. While Osamu receives occasional employment and Nobuyo has a low-paying job, the family relies in large part on 'grandmother' Hatsue's pension. As he is shoplifting for groceries with his 'son', Shota (Kairi Jo), they discover Yuri (Miyu Sasaki), a neglected girl. Osamu takes her home, where the family observes evidence of abuse. Despite their strained finances, they informally adopt her.

Once in a long while, a film can come along, sneaks up on you and sends your heart into a flutter of tiny explosions. Coming out of the screening with six other friends, we had to dissect what we had just experienced. As it turned out, it wasn't much of a deconstruction, but more of a discussion of the ideas of the family unit that Kore-eda paints with such delicate and painterly brushstrokes. That's when you realise the immense power of cinema and what it can do. This is a gem.

Kore-eda dives into his favourite theme of the family unit and observes what will happen to the bedrock of familial relationships if it goes through a seismic shift. It is a theme he has dealt with in outstanding films like Nobody Knows (2004), Still Walking (2008), I Wish (2011), Like Father, Like Son (2013), Our Little Sister (2015) and After the Storm (2016). After so many excellent films on the same theme, you would think what else can he still distill. Shoplifters may be Kore-eda most complex, but yet his most accessible film to date.

The ideas explored in Shoplifters are multi-faceted and piercingly intelligent, intermeshed into a tapestry that will fall apart if even one scene is taken out. The script is subtle and draws empathy readily. So many times the dialogue feels innocuous, only for the poignancy to hit you in the gut some time later. It doesn't judge, never points a finger at any party, nothing here errs on the side of twee. The tone is deftly maintained from the first frame to the devastating last.

As usual, the heavy-lifting is done by the youngest actors, performances so naturalistic that they feel authentic. The ensemble is superbly cast and each of them shines in their own memorable way. They may be thieves, but there is honour and righteousness in them. They do not represent the lowest strata of the Japanese society and don't believe in handouts. With a warped sense of justice, they are willing to break the rules to survive. Above all else, their love and trust for each other is the glue that binds them.

Kore-eda never cheapens the emotional ride and doles out expositions like sermons. Details of characters are gradually accumulated in a Zen manner till it hits a gut-wrenching last act.

Like a lot of his heart-wrenching films, Shoplifters feels like a 3-hour magnum opus and I was again surprised it is only a 2-hour film because Kore-eda packs so much in the story. You will no doubt feel like you had liv

The storytelling is very powerful. It slowly puts you in a situation that you are comfortable with, and step by step reveals a hidden layer. It simply challenges what the society defines as bond, connection, family, etc, and how laws conform to that. One of the best movies I've watched in the recent years.

Excellently scripted and full of impressive subtleties, Shoplifters is a harrowing look at a working-class family in Tokyo, in the business of trying to simply make ends meet day by day. At first glance this may seem like just a story of this family resorting to petty crime, but as the plot gradually unfolds the reasons for the behaviour and decisions of each character is revealed, and al the dots begin to connect amidst this struggle.

Certainly seeing some of the characters getting involved in decidedly immoral behaviour- for example, the shoplifting carried out by the young boy and his father (as the title indications) and one young lady making a living off involvement in the porn industry, can be uncomfortable to see and it does present the characters in this film as morally dubious. But the whole situation that these people are in, and partially choose to create themselves, is eventually presented to the audience with unassuming subtlety, which is beautiful to watch. The overall tone of this film is fairly grim, and there is definitely raw emotional power to many scenes, but the acting and the script never at any point becomes overly sentimental or tragic. The scenarios and emotions that each character faces is really presented as it is, but of course with much delicacy.

This film may be relatively slow-paced and not visually stunning, but is breathtaking nonetheless. It's no wonder why it managed to win the Palme D'or! It's definitely going to end up as one of the best films of the year and will probably be recognised as a classic long in the future. Regardless of which culture you're from, I highly recommend checking this film out. It should deeply resonate with and impress any film lover.