After Life(1999)

1h 59m
- Drama
- Fantasy

Release Date: May 14, 1999

7.6

After death, people have a week to choose only one memory to keep for eternity.

Note: Distributed by Artistic License

Release Details

Original Release | May 14, 1999 | Limited (Artistic License)

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Box Office Results

2026-09-25T12:02:21.438Z

Results

Opening Weekend US & Canada:
$11,791
Total US & Canada:
$801,985
Total Worldwide:
$801,985

Current Showtimes

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Location

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Director & Top Cast

Hirokazu Koreeda
Director

Arata Iura
Takashi Mochizuki, counselor

Erika Oda
Shiori Satonaka, trainee counselor

Susumu Terajima
Satoru Kawashima, counselor

Takashi Naitô
Takuro Sugie, counselor

Technical Specifications

Sound Mix: Mono

Aspect Ratio: 1.66 : 1

Other Details

Country of Origin: Japan

Language: Japanese

Summaries

Plot Summary

Life is truly known only to those who suffer, lose, endure adversity and stumble from defeat to defeat. Anais Nin

Storyline

A small mid-20th century social-service-style office is a waystation for the souls of the recently deceased, where they are processed before entering their personal heaven - a single happy memory re-experienced for eternity. Every Monday, a new group of recently deceased people check in, and the "social workers" in the lodge explain their situation. Once the newly-dead have identified their happiest memories, workers design and replicate each person's chosen memory, which is staged and filmed. At the end of the week, the recently deceased watch the films of their recreated happiest memories in a screening room. As soon as each person sees his or her own memory, he or she vanishes to whatever state of existence lies beyond and takes only that single memory with them. The story pays most attention to two of the "counselors," Takashi (Arata) and Shiori (Oda). Takashi has been assigned to help an old man, Ichiro (played by Naito Taketoshi), select his memory. Reviewing videotape of Ichiro's life, Takashi learns that Ichiro had married Takashi's former fiancée after Takashi had been killed during World War II. Takashi has Ichiro assigned to another counselor, but is still troubled by his memories, causing both him and his quasi-romantic interest Shiori to re-examine their (after-) lives. — Gaafar After people die, they spend a week with counselors, also dead, who help them pick one memory, the only memory they can take to eternity. They describe the memory to the staff who work with a crew to film it and screen it at week's end; eternity follows. 22 dead arrive that week, assigned to three counselors and a trainee. One old man cannot find a memory, so he watches videotape of his life. Others pick their memory quickly, and the film crew gets right to work. The trainee, 18-year-old Shiori, helps a teenage girl choose a memory other than Disneyland. The youthful staff have a secret and feelings, too, which play out, especially Shiori's affection for her mentor, Mochizuki — Every Monday morning, a team of advisors welcome in a facility a group of people that has just died with the mission of helping each one of them to select their best memory that will last for the eternity in the first three days. On Thursday, filmmakers begin to recreate the selected memory, and in the end of the week they screen it in a movie theater and he or she moves to Heaven. — Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

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