Before We Vanish (2017)

• Year: 2017
• Released: 16 Sep 2017
• Country: Japan
• Adwords: 2 wins & 11 nominations
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5999530/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/before_we_vanish
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/before-we-vanish
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: Japanese
• MPA Rating: R
• Genre: Drama, Sci-Fi
• Runtime: 129 min
• Writer: Tomohiro Maekawa, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Sachiko Tanaka
• Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
• Cast: Masami Nagasawa, Ryûhei Matsuda, Hiroki Hasegawa
• Keywords: based on play or musical,

	6.1/10
	64/100
	80% – Critics
	54% – Audience

Before We Vanish Storyline

Narumi (Nagasawa) is on bad terms with her husband, Shinji (Matsuda), when, one day, Shinji goes missing. He comes back a couple of days later, but he seems like a totally different person; now gentle and tender. Meanwhile, journalist Sakurai (Hasegawa) covers the story of a family that was brutally murdered, when an unexplained phenomenon takes place. Shinji tells his wife that he came to Earth to invade.

Before We Vanish Play trailer

Before We Vanish Photos

Before We Vanish Torrents Download

Before We Vanish Subtitles Download

Before We Vanish Movie Reviews

warning: don’t believe the trailer that makes this look like an action movie

I can’t really fairly review this movie because I pulled it off the internet and the home-made subtitles were often incomprehensible. But I can say that the trailer that inspired me to hunt this down was a lie. This is a two-hour movie with maybe 25 minutes of fighting and explosions, and the trailer made it look like a John Woo movie.

Instead, this is a rather slow-moving drama about extraterrestrials on earth to prepare an invasion. The most interesting idea in the film is that these aliens can only understand human concepts, like love or ownership, by absorbing them. Doing so removes that concept from the human, in some cases leaving them angry or confused but other times giving them a revelatory happiness.

I might have liked this movie more with better subtitles – certainly I would have been clearer on the fine points – but I would have rather watched the movie the trailer had promised me than the one I got.

Novel approach

So I do not know the novel or have I read it. But the movie is quite interesting and it really has some enticing ideas it explores. It may not be as engaging as some might think or want it to be, but it is more than decent. Now there are many ideas and quite a few interesting revelations society wise – and commentary overall about how we live and what we fear.

Having said that, this is not flashy, but quite brutal and violent. You should not have a problem with that. The pacing and the accessibility to the characters may feel all over the place, but it adds to the overall flair of the movie. A fine watch, which is very weird and flawed …

Concept is cool, but the ideas are all over

The first 20 minutes of this film are amazing, eerie and keep you on the edge of your seat. Then the rest of the film falls flat from there. Some cool concepts but they’re muddled all over the place and in the end, it’s a one dimensional film that had so much promise but never delivered.

Worth watching the first 20 minutes.