Kore-eda hasn’t been idle since 2018, when “store thieves” took Cannes by storm. The film was subsequently nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, making it the last film to do so in Kore-eda’s homeland before Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s. “Drive my car” It was the first Japanese film to receive a Best Picture nomination this year.
Since then, Kore-eda has been working in other languages. “The Truth” saw him directing Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche, and Ethan Hawke in French and English, this year’s “Broker” teamed up with “Parasite” star Song Kang-ho for a Korean-language film.
Rafael Motamayor’s Cannes “Broker” review for /Film calls it “another poignant drama about found families”, just like “Store thieves”. Since family found or absent is the basis of so many Japanese dramas, it’s not hard to imagine that “The Beast” could cover the same topic, but at this point we really have no idea what the movie might be about.
Taken literally, the title “Monster” sounds more like a horror movie, or perhaps a serial killer thriller, like the 2004 Oscar-winning film of the same name starring Charlize Theron. Kore-eda made at least one legal thriller, 2017s “The Third Murder” but he is the kind of director who could easily dress a title like “The Beast” as more of a metaphor for a drama.
No US release date has been announced yet, but “The Beast” hits theaters in Japan on June 2, 2023.