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Like Father, Like Son

Arrow has the UK rights to the critically acclaimed and hugely successful film, the latest from Hirokazu Koreeda.
So far this seems to be the worldwide first home video of the film, even before the Japanese release.
Specs still TBA.

Saw this theatrically and liked it a lot!

I liked it quite a bit also. I felt I had to stick with it for a while before its rewards became apparent (it all seemed just a little simplistic at first), but then it grew on me tremendously once the characters and situations developed. I highly recommend it.

I was amazed to find a theatrical showing of this before any DVD was released and really enjoyed the experience . I also liked it a lot and thought the slow pace and character development worked very well.

While the UK release has been delayed until 4/28, the Japanese release has been announced for 4/23. Specs and extras are TBA, but there will be a "making-of and more"

Will the Japanese release have English subtitles as per his previous films ?

longstone wrote:Will the Japanese release have English subtitles as per his previous films ?

No info yet.

Subtitles:

English (burned-in)

Oh dear. I'm guessing this was contractual? Do companies just hate UK indie labels (AE)?

Did anyone find out if the Japanese release has English subs ? I don't think it is listed as such at Yesasia for example but most of his previous Japanese DVD/Blu releases seem to have had them.

burnt-it subtitles again?..
](*,)
I don't know if this has something to do with France (Holy Motors, the last Bresson - still not released in France). But as far as "Life Father, Like Son" is concerned they choose in France to only release it on DVD in France (like they did for Andrea Arnold's "Wuthering Heights" (but we had more chance with that one at that time)...

at least if this is for contractual reasons, please do not hold - France - my country - the rights; don't hold just the rights, please release it in blu-ray so that we can buy your French-camembertquipue Blu-Ray. Thanks.

after Artificial Eye. I thought that Arrow was "safe"...

The burnt in subs issue is pretty annoying. Even more so since their previous Koreeda release I Wish had optional subs.

Order cancelled, £13 is too much for a bare bones release with hideous burnt in subs.

longstone wrote:Did anyone find out if the Japanese release has English subs ? I don't think it is listed as such at Yesasia for example but most of his previous Japanese DVD/Blu releases seem to have had them.

It does not, unfortunately.

This is a difficult film to judge, but I ended up liking it a lot. It is not at the masterpiece level of I Wish, and it features a rather hackneyed switched at birth plotline, with all the associated upper versus lower, warm versus cold dichotomies (and the 'nurse with a grudge' instigating character). But it then proceeds to deal with that material quite seriously and beautifully compared to more comic or caricatured previous films in this vein, particularly the French film Life Is A Long Quiet River, which Like Father, Like Son really feels like a much more effective remake of on almost all levels. I even preferred the 'wrong side of the tracks' metaphor being re-visualised here into travelling to 'the other side of the power lines'!

The film does feel a bit too conveniently plot driven throughout, with scenes juxtaposing laid back fathers against hyper-tense ones, or contented children against grumpy ones, but as the film went on I felt more and more willing to give it a pass, as all of the underlined juxtapositions themselves feel as if they are playing into the assumptions being made by the various parents. Perhaps the film is putting the audience into the mindset of the parents that of course the boys are happy here, or unhappy. Eventually the whole film is a projection of the audience onto the attitude the parents are projecting onto the attitudes that their children are having. I kept wishing throughout that either set of parents would just sit their sons down and discuss the situation directly with them (rather than their lawyers!), rather than veiling or sugar coating their decisions, something which never seems to happen until the final scene of the film, which is kind of the reason for the end of the conflict.

This is perhaps why I prefer I Wish - that film is told much more from the perspective of the kids thrown into the difficult situation by their parents. This is really the parent-centred companion piece, in which the kids are much more in the background, almost used as pawns throughout. Though this really makes the post-swap section of the film stand out more, as the two boys come into their own as finally being shown to have their own willfullness - particularly Ryonosuke acting up, but also Keita in his own way. Keita is less combative and more accommodating, but that shouldn't be taken as being any less confused and disturbed by the situation (as in the communal bath scene, in which he is uncomfortable but smiles along anyway), and I particularly love that the final scene of the film revolves around him and his feelings of abandonment - really more betrayal of his love - by being treated as interchangable by his father in favour of his blood relative son.

This leads me to the best shot of the film, the moment where Midori and Ryoka, who have been careful to only put on a happy face for Keita have a row just before the swap, in which Midori finally calls back to a comment Ryoka made on first hearing about the swapped babies - that "this explains everything" - and says that there is no going back from a comment like that. There is then a very upsetting edit to Keita wide awake in the adjoining bedroom listening to the row. There is no going back from that moment either, despite the happy ending.

I particularly like that while the film pretty obviously focuses on Ryoka's coldness and allows people to throw pat explanations such as 'father issues' at him to explain his behaviour, that Ryoka actually becomes more sympathetic as the film goes on - shut down to avoid pain. His great line very early on that he is pushing Keita hard because "there is no room for kind people anymore", seems key to explaining his behaviour throughout the rest of the film. He's not upset because he doesn't expect anything less from anyone he meets.

Midori is the much more open and warm character, striking up a friendship with Yukari, the other mother, and initially it is much easier to sympathise with both of the women in this situation than either of the fathers who take up polar opposite positions of uptight workaholic and layabout. Yet in their reaction to the confession from the nurse, both women are wanting retribution while the response of the men, and especially Ryoka in his visit to the nurse later on, take the situation a bit more pragmatically. Midori is also struggling with her own issues of feeling as if she has failed as a mother, and seemingly overcompensates in some ways to balance out Ryoka's superficial coldness. But all of the characters in this film, from bosses to grandparents, are given the chance to give their take on the situation (and sometimes contradict what they are saying by their own actions, suggesting that dispassionate advice isn't set in stone when it comes to real world relationships, or personal needs), which is where the film's compassion really shines through in refusing to create neat heroes and villains. (I actually think this is the best aspect of this film and a positive development from the parental characters in I Wish, who were more used as the more single-issue driven, reductive, supporting motivators to push the kids into deciding to take their fates into their own hands)

Ryoka has only just been able to open up to his wife and son and suddenly is faced with a potential 'cuckoo in the nest'. Yet he can't abandon Keita. This switched at birth plot is bringing home to the characters the way that the fate and future of their children are in their hands, something that they would never have had to consider before but suddenly there are a number of possible futures available to them that are inevitably going to get closed off by whatever choice is going to be made. Not just class and income based but warmth and cultural based too. Are you going to destroy your son's life by leaving him with another family, or by removing him from that (leading him to take an I Wish-style train journey back home), and vice versa?

I thought that the sequence of scrolling through the photographs on the camera was very well done and much in the same vein as that collection of moments that went into the trip in I Wish. It is less about the emotional impact (though both sequences are the height of that) but the intent of both scenes is to step outside of the current drama and see events from a different unconsidered perspective that had been pointedly withheld throughout the rest of each of the films. In this case the child's point of view.

So it is a film I like a lot, with a number of perfect moments, but which feels slightly flawed overall, with the drama drawn out a bit too much by one side versus another conflicts when really it shouldn't have to be an either-or choice but an incorporation of both families together so that both sets of parents can see both boys whenever they want. That was a pretty obvious idea about half an hour in, but takes until the final shot to finally occur, which immediately gets used as a resolution to all of the preceding drama!

I've just remembered another shot I loved, Ryoka alone in his study hearing Midori play-fighting with Ryonosuke and hearing him call him Dad for the first time as he says he is going to beat Ryoka up next! The way that the moment is played is absolutely perfect - I could almost physically feel the intake of breath at Ryoka hearing himself called that for the first time, knowing that his son was coming to see him. And then it all ends up in a big mock-battle that ends the scene joyously! (There are quite a few scenes in this film that are perfectly edited: a number of which end on very happy moments such as this one, and on the other hand a few which end in deeply sad 'trapped in an impasse' ways which makes masterful use of the slow fade to black).

I'm still bewildered this hasn't had a US release. Wasn't this an IFC film? If so, maybe Criterion has been sitting on it

Only a DVD release so far: https://www.mpihomevideo.com/products/l ... ke-son-dvd

IFC will release this as a Vinegar Syndrome partner label for a high MSRP with one extra, if anything. Criterion is barely interested in Kore-eda unfortunately....it took them forever to even touch After Life. we still don't have Nobody Knows in the US either. thankful for UK and Korean releases to fill out my collection of his films. the Arrow boxset rules

ryannichols7 wrote: Sun Feb 08, 2026 1:36 am Criterion is barely interested in Kore-eda unfortunately....it took them forever to even touch After Life. we still don't have Nobody Knows in the US either.

Which is a shame because I can't think of another (post 2000) Asian film director (except for maybe Ann Hui) whose complete output I would preorder if a comprehensive box set were issued more than Kore-eda.

Lowry_Sam wrote: Sun Feb 08, 2026 4:59 am

ryannichols7 wrote: Sun Feb 08, 2026 1:36 am Criterion is barely interested in Kore-eda unfortunately....it took them forever to even touch After Life. we still don't have Nobody Knows in the US either.

Which is a shame because I can't think of another (post 2000) Asian film director (except for maybe Ann Hui) whose complete output I would preorder if a comprehensive box set were issued more than Kore-eda.

believe me when I say you're not alone on that. I tend to think Kore-eda is rather popular in the US too which makes it all the more baffling. Janus hasn't picked up any of his recent films, and then Criterion has had access to Nobody Knows for eons (they were the only ones licensing from IFC for awhile), and they'd be right to put out a disc..the BFI disc is way over-tealed and luckily the Korean disc from Plain Archive corrects it...but I'd rather have a Criterion. but they really, genuinely don't seem interested. thankfully Arrow and the BFI put out a solid survey at least

not to mention Shoplifters getting totally buried. or Distance, which I still should import from Japan

Nobody Knows had an MGM DVD

Rarewaves still has copies of the UK BD of Shoplifters.

US released their own Blu-ray of Shoplifters earlier last year.

Shoplifters is the really shocking one to have not received a bigger push in the US, since I remember at the time there were quite a few actors and directors citing it as their favourite film of the year, especially after its Palme D'Or win and in the run for its Foreign Language Film Oscar nomination (where Curaron's Roma inevitably won instead. Which of course did receive a Blu-ray edition through Criterion soon afterwards). It even made David Ehrlich's films of the year video! So that would have been the most oppportune time for the big Kore-eda push in the US (as occurred in the UK with boutique labels releasing his back catalogue to tie in with the release of Shoplifters there), but for one reason or other it did not appear to get that treatment, only Milestone/Oscilloscope's Blu of Maborosi at the time and Criterion's edition of After Life in the years since.

Also since this thread has come to the top again, I thought I should take the opportunity to say that after that more mixed (though generally positive) post from 2014 above, I revisited this particular film about eight years later, and it really grew in my estimations.

andyli wrote: Sun Feb 08, 2026 9:38 am US released their own Blu-ray of Shoplifters earlier last year.

Yeah, Magnolia Pictures finally released a no frills Blu-ray last year. I guess that’s lucky for us because they have very little interest in physical media