About

‘The story of a divorced gambling addict named Ryota (the brilliant Hiroshi Abe) who slowly confronts the fact that he’s becoming the same kind of satellite dad as the man who raised him, After the Storm could very well have been called Like Father, Like Son had Kore-eda not already made a film by that title. It begins in Kiyose, a quiet city on the outer rim of the Tokyo galaxy, where Ryota’s newly widowed mother (Kirin Kiki) takes note of the incoming typhoon, and remembers how worried she used to be that every stretch of inclement weather might tear off her roof. Her son is nearly 50, and he only comes home to pawn his late father’s belongings, but he still needs someone to look after him.

After the Storm may sound like it has the makings of a strained domestic melodrama, filled with teary speeches and dangerous acts of parental selfishness, but viewers familiar with Koreeda’s quotidian flair know to expect a more pleasant, contemplative affair. For all of the Japanese directors who have been reflexively likened to Yasujirō Ozu, Koreeda is one of the precious few who earns the comparison. His eased, comfortable style is light years removed from Ozu’s formal rigidity, but their achingly wistful films are bound by a shared compulsion to confront life’s everyday disappointments, and to reckon with the ones that we bring upon ourselves.’ Indiewire