Before We Vanish (Sanpo suru shinryakusha) Reviews
February 10, 2020
Before We Vanish doesn't take a pro-alien or human stance (both sides deserve to lose at any point in time), but stands by karma as the ultimate universal law.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
September 23, 2019
While the plot used here is as cringe-worthingly cheesy as most alien invasions tend to be, many viewers will find plenty of worth in the emotions on display. As the aliens keep saying in the film: "This is interesting. I'll take it!"
Full Review
| Original Score: 7/10
June 5, 2019
Genre has always been his strong suit and Before We Vanish is entertaining and accomplished enough to show why Kurosawa remains one of Japan's foremost auteurs working today.
February 15, 2019
A lively and unnerving but silly cerebral sci-fi alien invasion film to ponder in its strangeness.
Full Review
| Original Score: B
February 11, 2019
The characters are flawed, thorny and affable, while sun-kissed settings and a John Williams-style score, by Yusuke Hayashi, alleviate the gloomy mood and doomsday notions.
Full Review
| Original Score: 9/10
February 9, 2019
By the time the credits rolled, I felt that I'd seen something I wouldn't soon forget.
October 26, 2018
Before We Vanish delights as much as it confuses - and, considering its slower pace and two-plus hour running time - occasionally bores.
October 17, 2018
The plot takes some unexplained - or inexplicable - twists.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
August 20, 2018
Insanely fun and ambitious, but also quite melancholic.
June 12, 2018
Kurosawa tackles some pretty big ideas about the human condition, again in his signature style of deliberate, understated precision.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
March 14, 2018
Sardonic, satiric aliens invade horror without the wit, urgency or style to come off.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/4
March 13, 2018
Before We Vanish is very funny, very bloody, and doesn't have a happy ending.
March 8, 2018
In some ways, a distant and much less portentous cousin to 2016's Arrival.
March 2, 2018
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.
February 16, 2018
... one would be hard-pressed to deny that half the fun lies in taking the film in as the strange sum of its many seemingly ill-fitting parts.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
February 16, 2018
As an experiment in blending the minute character observations of Kurosawa's dramas into a pure genre plot, Before We Vanish does succeed.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
February 15, 2018
Opening with moments of shocking violence but quickly sliding into absurdist whimsy, this is a weird one even for Kiyoshi Kurosawa. But it has its moments.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
February 15, 2018
Kurosawa's parable about the prisons we carry about with us is thought-provoking and occasionally witty, but not concise. The Japanese title literally means "Strolling Aliens", a clue to how much the movie meanders.
February 15, 2018
The term genre-bender is often applied to director Kiyoshi Kurosawa for his mix of horror and drama. With this odd alien-invasion story, however, genre-broken might be more apt.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/5
February 15, 2018
Part ghost story, goofy comedy, marital melodrama, rebel youth film, action movie and sci-fi - all immensely fun and impeccably made.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5