Yesterday evening I watched After The Storm. Now I have seen all of the fictional Koreeda films save for his latest (a crime drama apparently). I have yet to watch his documentaries but I plan on it soon. This film was done in between shooting parts of "Our Little Sister" but released afterward. I have been chewing over it all day, trying to figure out how I feel about it, as if part of my first impression might have been wrong. Many actors from Koreeda's previous films show up in this one, making it sort of a reunion, at least for me since I have been immersing myself in Koreeda's work. Would my first impression have been different if I hadn't recognized them? Possibly. I think of Matt Damon showing up in the middle of Interstellar and me almost yelling out "what the hell!" in the theater. But it wasn't so bad in this case, and these actors are so wonderful, especially Kirin Kiki as the old mother / grandmother. I somehow feel that Hiroshi Abe, the actor for the main character "Shinoda Ryôta", was miscast, no matter how much I like him; he just seems too good to be doing the things the character does. But overall the movie succeeded in keeping my attention, and in making me uncomfortable: there's much here of the less-romantic, real Japan that over here in the States we're not so used to seeing. And like in other Koreeda films, the patience to observe smaller actions and exchanges that add up to so much more.