Before We Vanish (2017) User Reviews

Concept is cool, but the ideas are all over

[dallasryan · 5/10 · 30 October 2018]

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.

Good Japanese sci-fi

[ljseneres · 7/10 · 1 February 2020]

There's a lot of crappy Japanese sci-fi out there so this was a pleasant surprise. The music gets a little hokey occasionally but I was impressed with the acting, direction, and cinematography. As alien body-possession, other-dimensional movies go, this was enjoyable.

A Hesitation of Kiyoshi Kurosawa

[DawsonChu · 7/10 · 17 March 2018]

Apparently, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the director of the film, focus on expound the theme of the story mechanically, while structure of script is somewhat unsatisfactory. In addition, Kiyoshi Kurosawa did not deal with relationship well between the personal expression and mainstream value. However, because of veteran cinematography and proper performance, the executive ability of every single shot is very good. Therefore, in general, emotional expression is obviously better than the construct of world view in this film. In other words, the hesitation of director stops the film from becoming a classic work, if he could make a more determined decision, it will turn into a better film.

I love it

[DansLeNoir · 26 August 2020]

It was more creative and successful than I expected. The story and the alien design were original in my opinion. Their acting and emotional experiences were also good. As an American cliché, the low scores of non-American films are due to the stereotypical members of IMDb.

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

[cherold · 6/10 · 22 June 2019]

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.

Slow Motion Sci-Fi

[qeter · 3/10 · 5 November 2017]

Seen at the Viennale 2017: At the beginning I liked this movie. I like the succinct dialogues that appear to be very often a trademark of Japanese movies. But with ongoing time, I sat in the cinema thinking: come on!, we got it, please show us the next scene. I did not look for the time. But it became a pain. Very often I thought, okay now comes the logical end. But no. Another intermediate dialogue had to be followed. And another one. And another one. At the end I was really exhausted.

Novel approach

[kosmasp · 8/10 · 29 April 2020]

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 ...

Waste of time

[zakonline · 2/10 · 7 September 2018]

Good example of lazy filmmaking. Superficial and silly, with plot holes a mile wide. Watching this, one wonders if there is a limit to the depths of banality and nonsense to which a filmmaker/director will plumb.

I'll take that!

[Petelecaster · 10/10 · 18 April 2021]

Incredible attempt at the genre, reminiscent of the English "History of the Future Folk". Not sure if viewers are seeing dubbed or poorly translated copies, but I found the Japanese dialogue simple,powerful, and well executed with a perfect cast selection. I could sense the movie was taking a more humanistic tangent after the opening scene, yet was still floored when of all things, Religion - not war fated the fighting chance. It made me laugh, cry, and overall felt appropriate for 2 hour runtime.

FF

[westsideschl · 3/10 · 31 May 2018]

Three star said it was boring - they're wrong - it's worse than boring. The storyline plot premise of aliens taking over human bodies to conquer the planet or whatever has many past iterations/forms all of which made an alien presence somewhat believable. In this case all we get are humans acting (actually stilted acting with lots of stilted talking) like narcissistic superficial humans - just talking about themselves. In the beginning there was a bloody (not shown - just aftermath) of daughter killing parents which made no sense and nothing came of it and then later a few scenes of brief gun battles between an alien human and humans and finally little fire balls coming down that was suppose to represent aliens invading (the special effects part).

Cool movie, just don't sit next to a sneezing man

[tntmaharaja · 5 March 2018]

I very much enjoyed "Before we Vanish" at Serbia's FEST2018, the premise of an alien invasion allowing the film to stage an entertaining but believable depiction of humans robbed of very specific parts of their brains, namely the supposed segments which would contain ideas such as "property" and "self". Despite running for over 2 hours it stayed on course til the end, even against ever-escalating violence, and delivered a nice payoff with an ending worth talking about.

The predominantly youthful cast had fun with the script, in itself already full of laughs, though it never wandered off into goofiness for the sake of it. Really my only complaint of the whole experience regarded the person sitting next to my girlfriend, a college-student-looking dude who at first glance seemed like the best type of person to be sitting next to in the theater, making use of his time before the lights went out to read a very old looking book; only to disappoint us and many others in the venue by not making it more than thirty seconds without letting out a sneeze, cough or long sniffle. Even so, this seriously ill person managed to have a few chuckles of his own, supporting the film's notion that men left without crucial concepts like "contagion", "karma" or "decency" could still live enjoyable, if oblivious, lives.

Spooky Kiyoski Korosawa romance.

[Mozjoukine · 19 November 2017]

Characteristic spooky Kurosawa romance but with added science fiction and suspense elements. The husband is acting strangely in hospital, the teenage girl emerges from the house blood stained and a cheery teenager connects with a reporter who shows up in a borrowed TV truck. The film spends most of it's not short running time exploring the mechanics of spaceman invasion and it's done through rather endearing aliens - even when they start wreaking havoc with very loud, government issue automatic weapons.

Scope filming and subdued playing register and the business of having the characters appear against backgrounds more brightly lit than they are manages to be eerie.