Some pictures of the Criterion Collection release of After Life (1998) by renowned Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda, who also bought us critically acclaimed films like Nobody Knows, Still Walking & Our Little Sister. The original Japanese title for the film is “Wonderful Life”.

I first saw After Life in 1998 ( or 1999 ) at the Singapore International Film Festival, and it was the film that introduced me to Kore-eda’s cinematic work. As a young and enthusiastic film/animation student back then this slow-paced but thought provoking film left quite the impression on me.

Here are some pictures of the blu-ray set and its contents –

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

– New 2K restoration, approved by writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
– New audio commentary featuring film scholar Linda C. Ehrlich
– New interviews with Kore-eda and cinematographers Masayoshi Sukita and Yutaka Yamazaki
– Deleted scenes
– Trailer
– PLUS: An essay by novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen
– New cover featuring photography by Masayoshi Sukita, designed by Eric Skillman

The 2K restoration certainly presents the film in its original, best form; because the film was shot on Super 16 and not 35mm film, the sharpness and clarity that we’ve come to expect from the latter isn’t present. In the interview included on the disc, Kore-eda mentions that he had originally planned to shoot on 35mm, but the producer informed him that they just didn’t have that kind of budget.

The aforementioned interview with Kore-eda was shot very recently in 2021 during the making of this release and presents some very illuminating trivia as well as insights into the director’s filmmaking techniques, inspirations and thought processes. One little interesting tidbit he mentioned was that he much preferred the original Japanese title for the film “Wonderful Life” as opposed to the international title “After Life”; he was much more interested in documenting the lives of the characters portrayed in the film rather than the supernatural aspect of life after death. Of course, “Wonderful Life” would not have been as relevant a title as “After Life” for the international market; another instance of meanings lost in translation.

Not a lot of bells and whistles on this release, but I’m still very glad that Criterion decided to cover this little gem of a film that I like very much, and I highly recommend it. I’ve also picked up another film of Kore-eda that was released by Criterion, Still Walking which I will review in the coming week/s.

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