SHOPLIFTERS

A Film That’s Sure to Steal Your Heart

Venue: June 23 (Sat)-June 29 (Fri): Shinjuku Wald 9
Please check the starting time on the theater sites.
Official website: gaga.ne.jp/manbiki-kazoku/
Theater website: kinezo.jp/pc/theater_news/index?ush=140feb4#11701
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zJ3_JZnH_Q
Tariff:  General: ¥1,800, University Students: ¥1,500, High school students: ¥1,000, Junior high school students or below: ¥1,000

Title: 万引き家族 (Manbiki Kazoku)
Director: Kore-eda Hirokazu (是枝裕和)
Duration: 120 min

This is the type of news we wish we could announce every week (or at least, every month): Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Palme d’Or-winning Shoplifters will be running for a limited time in Tokyo with English subs. Run, don’t walk, to Shinjuku Wald 9 from June 23. And tell all your friends.

Chances are you’ve already seen or read something about the film, which has been politicized in the Japanese media for its depiction of a poverty-stricken family who resorts to shoplifting to get by. Given the current climate, some commentators have charged that this sends negative messages about Japan.

To the contrary. The family at the heart of this gently comedic, heart-wrenching story, is closer and more loving than the majority of families everywhere, and they are sure to stay with you long after you leave the theater.

Shoplifters opens in a supermarket, where young Shota (Jyo Kairi) and his father Osamu (Lily Franky, channeling his lovable patriarch in Like Father, Like Son) trade secret signals before filling a backpack with the night’s meal. Shota’s been taught how to pinch the things the family needs but can’t afford. “The stuff in stores doesn’t belong to anyone yet,” Osamu reassures him. The two work seamlessly together on the job, celebrating with fist-bumps before bringing their booty back to the ramshackle dwelling they share with Nobuyo (Momoko Ando), Nobuyo’s sister Aki (Mayu Matsuoka), and granny Hatsue (Kirin Kiki), whose small pension payments supplement the income of the adults’ minimum-wage jobs.

Returning home one frigid night, Osamu rescues a tiny girl, Yuri (Miyu Sasaki), who is trying to stay warm on the stairwell of a building. She is malnourished and too shy to speak. At first reluctant to shelter (and feed) yet another mouth, Nobuyo realizes that the girl is being abused and decides to take her in. Despite Shota’s initial resentment of his new “sister,” and the occasional incident (a broken leg, a lost job, a death), the family lives happily together, taking trips to the beach, building a snowman, watching Osamu’s magic tricks.

And then, a routline shoplifting spree triggers a startling outcome, and as hidden secrets are unraveled, threatens to undo the bonds uniting them.

Kore-eda took 6 prior films to Cannes — Distance (2001), Nobody Knows (2004), Air Doll (2009), Like Father, Like Son (which won the Cannes Jury Prize in 2013), Our Little Sister (2015), After the Storm (2016) — before finally earning the festival’s most coveted prize on May 19 for this film. That made him the first Japanese director in 21 years to receive the award, after Shoehi Imamura, for The Eel in 1997.

As lyrical and contemplative as Kore-eda’s previous work, it features award-worthy performances from a familiar — and much-loved — cast, along with two gifted children who make their debuts in the film. It also features a breathtakingly brilliant turn by Sakura Ando, collaborating with him for the first time. One can only hope she becomes one of his regulars.

Shinjuku Wald 9

Toho Cinemas Roppongi