Hirokazu Kore'eda is the most internationally acclaimed Japanese director of his generation, whose films are regularly invited to major world festivals and receive the sort of respectful attention from foreign scholars and critics usually accorded only to dead Golden Age masters.
Starting from his 1995 breakthrough "Maborosi" ("Maboroshi no Hikari"), Kore'eda focused on that core theme of classic humanist cinema: how memory shapes our lives, in both its endurance and absence. In "After Life" ("Wonderful Life," 1998), his most popular film, the newly dead must select one memory they are permitted to take with them into eternity, a search that becomes a source of joy and anguish.
This theme, explored in film after film, raised his stock as a serious auteur — but it eventually began to feel limiting. In his recent films, including his period drama "Hana" ("Hana Yori mo Naho," 2006), his family drama "Still Walking" ("Aruitemo Aruitemo," 2008) and his latest, "Air Doll" ("Kuki Ningyo"), Kore'eda has been exploring a fresh variety of genres and themes, with mixed results.