Surprisingly incoherent and boring

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Blistering performances.

I watched it a few years ago when I was maybe 15 years old, and now I am re-watching it for a university essay. I remember this film touched me deeply. I remember thinking on how I could have saved the children if I became their friends. I was imagining myself helping them, and living with them when their mom quit. I took the money, and I educated them, allowing them to go to school, to seek help from the city counsels...But the whole point of this movie, although frustrating, is all about letting you take a look a this incident that happened for real (and worse) the movie actually gave it a softened tone, less atrocious. Now that I have re-watched it, I think this work represents very well Kore-eda's early works style influenced by his documentary practices; the way he directs his films: giving the most freedom to the actors themselves, allowing them to play naturally, so that the final result captured on camera unfolds so naturally and convincingly. It's all on the details the director captures: the hands, the objects, the lowered camera angle to see what the children sees, the dirty nails, etc. The camera points out the importance Kore-eda wants us to focus on, and these items are evoking emotions. They reveal memories from the past with the mother: the nail polish. The multiple shots on the little red piano reveals the the young girl's strong desire to learn piano. The laughter reveals the innocence of the children not aware of the situation, etc. Every detail adding up makes the whole, like the details in our life that seems non significant adds up to be our whole life...and that is what matters.

What a waste of time. No idea how this movie got such a high rating on IMDb. It's incredibly long and boring: 2h 20mins and 80% of what you see is kids playing video games and buying groceries. I'm not a shallow person that needs fantasy, dizzying action and violence and smart-aleck dialogues, but this was boring even for me.The only good thing is that you get to see ordinary Japan. From watching VICE documentaries you can get the impression that Japan is a sleek, scentless technological utopia/dystopia full of emotionally stunted autistic virgins who marry cartoon characters and single moms who make money by eating their own poo in front of customers, so it was nice to see ordinary, human Japan.

I watched this movie in 2005 on the flight to Osaka. I couldn't believe the story. I couldn't believe that this could ever happen in Japan where children's lives are controlled every minute by teachers. When I got access to Google and checked out the story I couldn't believe this movie story was based on a real life situation. The young lead actor is beautiful, his skills in this story belie what he could do (hope he gets more movie opportunities). The story needs this kind of lead role. Sadly I found the other kids' acting to be basic -- but the story really relies on the lead actor. He needs an Oscar or some award for his work in this movie. Watch this movie. But be sure you are not distracted, watch it from beginning to end. You will be crying at the end. But not necessarily crying from sadness but from pleasure that the kids finally have their act together. But also sadness because they still have a long way to go.

I've seen it for the first time maybe like a year ago but, was just looking through some of it again and noticed how many good scenes there are in this film. It also has great atmosphere that pulls you in partly due to the cinematography and overall realism. The kids acting is very believable. Especially the oldest and the two youngest kids. I guess at some points the two youngest aren't even acting, they're playing themselves and it looks so natural that it greatly increases the realism of the film. After seeing this film I thought I could never be fully immersed in a normal fiction film. I felt like I had watched a documentary but then I remembered that this wasn't a documentary but a fiction based on real events. This is a film that makes you forget you're watching a film. And this is not the case with a lot of films these days for me. The soundtrack is subtle and moving. I'm bothered by the fact that I could have just missed this film and not seen it. I found it on IMDb. Who knows how many other good films are out there that I just missed because there wasn't a big budget promotion for them.