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Before We Vanish

Play trailer Poster for Before We Vanish R Released Feb 2, 2018 2h 10m Sci-Fi Mystery & Thriller Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
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82% Tomatometer 51 Reviews 55% Popcornmeter 100+ Ratings
Three aliens travel to Earth on a mission in preparation for a mass invasion. Having taken possession of human bodies, the visitors rob their hosts of the very essence of their being, leaving psychological and spiritual devastation in their wake.
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Before We Vanish

Before We Vanish

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Critics Consensus

Before We Vanish finds Kiyoshi Kurosawa working within well-established genre guidelines to take a poignant, surprisingly sincere look at the human condition.

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Critics Reviews

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Jonathan Romney Film Comment Magazine Based on a play by Tomohiro Maekawa, Before We Vanish-its Japanese title means "Strolling Invaders"-may not be prime Kurosawa, and it's oddly uneven in tone, but it has an ease about it that's intensely engaging. Mar 2, 2018 Full Review Kate Taylor Globe and Mail As an experiment in blending the minute character observations of Kurosawa's dramas into a pure genre plot, Before We Vanish does succeed. Rated: 3/4 Feb 16, 2018 Full Review Bruce DeMara Toronto Star It's a quirky hybrid of a film that mostly works, thanks to some fine performances and by a script to goes in unexpected directions. Rated: 2.5/4 Feb 15, 2018 Full Review Ankit Ojha Cinema Elite You’ll love the aliens—even root real hard for them—more than you will the humans (predictably, but also, “welcome to urf”), and that’s more than anybody can say for a whole bunch of humans-are-worse-than-aliens narratives we’ve seen before. Rated: 4/5 Jul 9, 2024 Full Review Benedict Seal Vague Visages Kurosawa’s film manages to hold interest throughout and, after some wild scenes of confusing character motivation in the third act, reaches a moment of real poignancy in its final scene. Dec 5, 2023 Full Review Jason Adams The Film Experience It wants nothing less in the end than to rend our souls - it just takes a circuitous route to get there Jul 2, 2021 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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babarizam D Its a compelling movie. Not a typical sci fi movie but deeply thoughtful and raise many questions Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 06/09/24 Full Review Diana S It's far too long and thinks itself a little too clever. It's an interesting sci-fi angle, and the ending was powerful enough. If the film has been edited more tightly and we'd gotten there more quickly, it would have resonated more strongly for me. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 04/28/24 Full Review Josh G A wonderful film combine great acting, many genres and a killer visual and color use. The cast delivers in this odd art film and makes you believe aliens are real, and the complicated relationships and politics of humanity matter and apply to all those who think. It begs the question what is the value of a human, Incredible film making. The space between defines us. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 08/14/23 Full Review Taylor L Before We Vanish is a strange genre clash that isn't to all tastes. The overarcing plot is simple enough - three aliens take over human bodies as scouts for an imminent invasion - but from there the film gets tricky. The scouts learn about humanity by stealing concepts from individual people (as in, to learn about property rights, they'll yoink the whole concept of property rights out of your mind). The film also diverges into two distinct pathways; one is an alien that has taken over an unfaithful man and who explores the idea of a relationship with his wife with unexpected sincerity, the other is a more conventional invasion narrative where the other two aliens (more violent and sociopathic) recruit a beat reporter to undergo an oddly laid-back quest to get a signal out to the invading army, all while facing down Japan's version of the Men in Black. You with me so far? Well, you've got plenty of time to figure things out, because writer-director Kiyoshi Kurosawa (no relation) has no qualms about taking his time to get to a destination. He's also very free-form with tone, treating violence as a kind of comic relief at points but also trending towards more profound, apocalyptic sci-fi and dealing heavily with the concept of human identity (as seen through the lens of an extraterrestrial intelligence). It's a bit interesting and offbeat, particularly the thought of long-simmering marital tensions being solved by alien possession, but the ending is a bit of a sticking point for me, with aliens calling off the invasion because they apparently learned about love; kind of hokey, the sort of thing you'd expect in an under-10 Disney sci-fi rather than a genre-bender like this. Very lackluster effects aren't a big selling point either. Anyway it's got unique pieces and I can see genre fans and cult film buffs fawning over this one. (3/5) Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/24/23 Full Review Audience Member This is a movie that improves with repeated viewings. Also, if you are watching it strictly for an exciting alien invasion story, I think you will be disappointed. This movie is basically a quirky fable about what it means to be human, as seen through the eyes of aliens. It is also a love story. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/01/23 Full Review Audience Member So boring, really annoying characters, terrible ending. Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Before We Vanish

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Cast & Crew

Movie Info

Synopsis Three aliens travel to Earth on a mission in preparation for a mass invasion. Having taken possession of human bodies, the visitors rob their hosts of the very essence of their being, leaving psychological and spiritual devastation in their wake.
Director
Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Producer
Yoshio Nakayama, Yôsuke Miyake
Screenwriter
Sachiko Tanaka, Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Distributor
Super LTD
Production Co
Django Film, Nikkatsu Corporation
Rating
R (Some Violence|Bloody Images)
Genre
Sci-Fi, Mystery & Thriller, Drama
Original Language
Japanese
Release Date (Theaters)
Feb 2, 2018, Limited
Release Date (Streaming)
May 1, 2018
Box Office (Gross USA)
$8.1K
Runtime
2h 10m
Sound Mix
Dolby Digital
Aspect Ratio
Scope (2.35:1)
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