Summary
Drama starring Masaharu Fukuyama and Machiko Ono. The life of a successful architect is thrown into turmoil after a call from the hospital informing him that the boy he has raised since birth is not his son.
Drama starring Masaharu Fukuyama and Machiko Ono. The life of a successful architect is thrown into turmoil after a call from the hospital informing him that the boy he has raised since birth is not his son.
The meaning of being a parent slowly dawns on a workaholic Tokyo architect in Hirokazu Koreeda's charming but surprisingly lightweight changeling drama. Masaharu Fukuyama plays the father who discovers that the hospital where his son was born made an error six years earlier, and that the boy is not his own flesh and blood. Accompanied by his dutiful wife (Machiko Ono), Fukuyama meets his real child, who has been raised in a much more relaxed manner in the suburbs by shop owners Lily Franky and Yoko Maki. But it's not until he comes to terms with his own childhood memories that Fukuyama can reconcile himself to his new circumstances. Koreeda makes some keen insights into the dynamics of the average Japanese household and coaxes exemplary performances out of his young actors, but the mother figures are thinly sketched and the fathers conform rather too neatly to salaryman stereotypes. Although it's a well-told tale, the conclusions it reaches regarding the nature-versus-nurture debate are poignant if rather predictable.
role | name |
---|---|
Ryota Nonomiya | Masaharu Fukuyama |
Midorino Nonomiya | Machiko Ono |
Yukari Saiki | Yoko Maki |
Yudai Saiki | Lily Franky |
role | name |
---|---|
Director | Hirokazu Koreeda |