Look Back

Yeah.

Um, another one that I saw that I thought was great was, uh, Kore-eda's live action adaptation of Look Back.

Yeah.

I...

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

But, uh, yeah, so Look Back, it's based on the manga Look Back, which was a- adapted into an anime a couple years ago.

Um, so like, um, I would- if you're gonna ex- uh, watch, probably watch the anime first because it's 55 minutes long, and-

Yeah, I was.

I mean, it's amazing to look back on it now and how influential it has become as a kind of a bit of a modern classic in that there was now such a, and it's still ongoing, a wave of movies or TV shows or miniseries that were about recent tech or kind of trying to create that same vibe.

And it was funny.

I remember when I first saw it, just the title credit sequence, which involves Mark Zuckerberg walking across the campus and that moody score.

It felt almost like an exercise in manipulation, to go, how quickly can I get you to ricochet back and forth between who you absolutely despise in a 90-minute movie? How did you feel about Sham?

Yeah, it was interesting because the case was the inspiration for the 2023 film Monster by Harukazu Kore-eda.

And Kore-eda actually has a film in the Japanese Film Festival this year, Look Back, which has already been made into an anime, but this is a live-action version of it.

I'm looking forward to catching up with that one as well.

While the production company behind the film has already cancelled several promotional events at the Busan International Film Festival due to the ongoing fallout.

Legendary Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda brought his latest work, Look Back, to the 31st Busan International Film Festival, marking his return to the event three years after presenting Monster at the 28th edition.

The acclaimed director sat down for a press conference at the Busan Cinema Center, alongside stars Furi Nanase, Natsuki Deguchi, Aju Makita and Roka Okada.

discussing how he transformed Tatsuki Fujimoto's beloved manga into its first ever live-action adaptation.

Kore-eda revealed that discovering the manga by chance in a bookstore left such a deep impression on him that it sparked a personal question he carried throughout filming, essentially asking himself why he makes movies at all.

The deeply personal film, which follows two girls bonding over their shared dream of making manga, was shot entirely on 35mm film across a full year of location shooting in Akita Prefecture, with the director explaining that using film let him focus completely on capturing authentic moments without the temptation to alter things in post-production.

Look Back already competed at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival and had its North American premiere in Toronto before this special outdoor screening in Busan.

And Korean audiences can catch it in theatres nationwide starting October 8th.

A lot of work these days.

So I only got to watch Kore-eda's last film, Look Back, which was an adaptation of an anime I haven't seen of two manga enthusiasts who met when they're in middle school.

One of them is like a shut-in girl.

That's how they refer to her because she doesn't go outside and she doesn't attend school, but she sends... her comic strips to the school newspaper and there's another girl who's also very interested in drawing and manga and she gets jealous of her drawings because she's better in detail and more academic let's say and they end up meeting each other and they like go on this adventure of like passionate adventure of like becoming manga artists together and But something happens and I was like, this is not my cup of tea.

It's not playing at LFF.

Last film that Jack reviewed for the website, and it is playing at LFF, which is Look Back.

Look back, yes, this is the biggest snub of the awards of Venice, unfortunately, is the new film from legendary Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda.

And it's his best film since Shoplifters.

Kore-eda is a legendary director.

Yeah, sure.

He has a big name and is very revered and appreciated in the industry.

But also we had to look back almost a decade until we saw something that was worth watching from him.

I will talk about two movies, one of which is also in competition for my favorite movie of the festival.

I know I said that Face of Horror was my favorite of the festival, but I honestly am kind of going back and forth between that movie and Look Back, which is the new movie by Hirokazu Kore-eda of Shoplifters fame.

Wasn't that a Palme d'Or winner? Am I remembering correctly? Yeah, that was Palme d'Or winter.

I've seen a lot of Hirokazu Kore-eda movies.

Hirokazu Kore-eda is fucking back.

Look Back is a huge improvement off Sheep in the Box.

Maybe that could be because he didn't write it, but it is so up his alley.

And the gentle, heartbreaking quality that I so love in his filmmaking is in full force there.

Instantly got me emotional.

And by the end, I was a complete wreck.

I really love Look Back.

I get a lot of people who have maybe more experience with the manga and the anime.

Yeah.

Okay, probably the last film that we'll be able to talk about in this recording is a movie called Look Back by Hirokazu Kore-eda.

First, I just have to say, Kore-eda had another movie this year that came out at Cannes that I did not like at all, so I felt extra...

I really wanted to watch this one because I... that he had another beautiful movie in him.

You know, I don't always need like the top shelf plot points.

Yeah, yeah.

How did you feel about Look Back?

Caveat.