Shoplifters 2018

Shoplifters | Manbiki Kazoku

Shoplifters-Manbiki Kazoku

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About the Shoplifters 💬

On the margins of Tokyo, a dysfunctional band of outsiders are united by fierce loyalty, a penchant for petty theft and playful grifting. When the young son is arrested, secrets are exposed that upend their tenuous, below-the-radar existence and test their quietly radical belief that it is love - not blood - that defines a family.

• The family who steal together, stay together?

''Everything's expensive. If you have to buy it.''

Lily Franky as Osamu Shibata

After another successful shoplifting spree, Osamu Shibata (Lily Franky) and his son Shota (Jyo Kairi) come across a little girl (Miyu Sasaki) in the freezing cold and invite her home with them. Osamu's wife Nobuyo (Sakura Andô) reluctantly agrees to shelter her after learning of the hardships she faces.

• Some lessons are easier to teach.

''I don't know anything else to teach them...''

Lily Franky as Osamu Shibata

Although the family is poor, relying on petty crime alongside their part-time jobs and inadequate incomes, they seem to live happily together- until an unforeseen incident upsets the delicate balance the family have created, revealing long-buried secrets...

• INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR HIROKAZU KORE-EDA

Q: You decided to make this film after learning about incidents of families illegally receiving the pensions of parents who had already died years ago. Was your intention to depict a family from a different angle compared to your previous films?

Hirokazu Koreeda: The first thing that came to my mind was the tagline: ''Only the crimes tied us together''. In Japan, crimes like pension frauds and parents making their children shoplift are criticized severely. Of course, these criminals should be criticized but I am wondering why people get so angry over such minor infractions even though there are many lawbreakers out there committing far more serious crimes without condemnation. Especially after the 2011 earthquakes, I didn't feel comfortable with people saying repeatedly that a family bond is important. So, I wanted to explore it by depicting a family linked by crime.

Q: The theme of this bond is central and other elements are added to it. Can you comment on this?

Hirokazu Koreeda: I started to think about which elements were unfolded and would be examined deeply after the casting was settled. As a result, this film is packed with the various elements I have been thinking about and exploring these last 10 years. It is the story of what family means, a story about a man trying to be a father, and furthermore, a coming-of-age story of a boy.

Q: The impoverished family in the film reminds us of Nobody Knows. What can you say about the similarity between that film and SHOPLIFTERS?

Hirokazu Koreeda: SHOPLIFTERS might be similar to Nobody Knows in the sense that this film also explores closely the sort of ''punished'' families we regularly see in news reports. It wasn't my intention simply to describe a poor family or the lower levels of the social strata. I rather think that the family in the film ended up gathering in that house not to collapse there. I wanted to shine a light on such a family from a different angle.

Q: The later scenes showing the family being split up are heart-breaking. We haven't seen such anger at social injustice shown so nakedly in your recent films. Can you comment on that?

Hirokazu Koreeda: It's true, maybe not since Nobody Knows. The core emotion when I was making this film might have been ''anger''. Since Still Walking, I have dug desperately deeper and more narrowly into the motif of personal things and after finishing After the Storm, I put the end to this approach of not broadening my vision to society, of minimizing as much as possible. It could be said that I have gone back to where I started.

Shoplifters Movie Details 🎥

Directed by

Hirokazu Koreeda

Writing Credits

Hirokazu Koreeda

Starring

Lily Franky

Sakura Andô

Kirin Kiki

Mayu Matsuoka

Jyo Kairi

Miyu Sasaki

Sôsuke Ikematsu

Naoto Ogata

Yôko Moriguchi

Yûki Yamada

Moemi Katayama

Akira Emoto

Kengo Kôra

Chizuru Ikewaki

Music by

Haruomi Hosono

Cinematography by

Ryûto Kondô

Categories: Oscars, Oscar Academy Award Nominee, Golden Globes, Golden Globe Nominee, EEBAFTAs, BAFTA Award Nominee

Genres: Crime, Drama

Country: Japan

Shoplifters Official Trailer

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