'Look Back' Director Hirokazu Koreeda On Adapting Manga And Learning To Live With The Ghosts Of The Past

Primary Journalistic Dispatch & Direct Reporting

Hirokazu Koreeda is not the world's most prolific director or even Japan's (that honor goes to Takashi Miike, who passed the 100-film milestone years ago). But he is certainly one of the most versatile and unpredictable; there are few directors who could follow the heart-wrenching poignancy of Still Walking (2008), a film about a family grieving for the death of a son, with Air Doll (2009), in which a wide-eyed inflatable sex doll comes magically to life.

Despite the serenity of Koreeda's shooting style, there is a restlessness to the artist that nevertheless makes his work hard to categorize. Though he frequently returns to his pet themes, he does so in many different ways, shooting in foreign places (France for 2019's The Truth and Korea for 2022's Broker ), and dabbling in genre, as he did with 2017's The Third Murder , a courtroom drama, and this year's sci-fi-tinged AI fantasy Sheep in the Box .

His Venice entry Look Back recalls his 2015 film Our Little Sister , a bittersweet study of the female friendships that develop when three grown-up sisters discover they have a 15-year-old step-sibling. Look Back , based on a manga by Tatsuki Fujimoto, tells the story of Fujino, a fourth-grade student who is fast becoming something of a star at school with her expertly drawn cartoon strips. Fujino then discovers that she has serious competition from Kyomoto, an agoraphobic student so talented that Fujino loses the will to continue, binning all her reference books.

In-Depth Developments & Factual Context

Fujino soon realizes that Kyomoto is really not a threat - her skills as a background artist perfectly match Fujino's - and together they work as Fujimoto, seamlessly switching from young girls to teenagers, with superb work from the film's matching pairs of actresses. Working as a team gives Kyomoto the confidence she needs to leave home and go to art school. There, the film takes a surprisingly dark turn, separating the two girls forever and resulting in a touching Sliding Doors twist that may take viewers a minute or two to catch up with as Fujino finds a way to process her overwhelming sense of loss.

Deadline sat down with the director to discuss this latest chapter in his storied career…

KOREEDA: It was in 2023 that I met the author of the original manga, Fujimoto Tatsuki. So, the project must have started quite a bit before that, maybe in 2022.

Industry Impact & Strategic Analysis

DEADLINE: What was it about this story that appealed to you? Do you read a lot of manga?

KOREEDA: I wouldn't say that I read a ton of manga, but there are a few authors that I really like and continue to follow. One thing is that I'm not of the generation that really grew up reading Shonen Jump, which is the weekly published magazine of manga. And Fujimoto is of that generation. So, it's not as if I'd encounter his work unless it was published as a collected book. And when I did see his book, it wasn't like, "Wow, that's Fujimoto Tatsuki." It was actually the cover that I was really drawn to.

I picked it up and read it, and I was really drawn into the story. This would've been around the period of the pandemic, when work had slowed down significantly for me, and it seemed to tell a story about what happens when artists encounter situations of despair that are kind of out of their control and how artists can start creating again after those types of periods. So, I could really relate to it, and I felt encouraged by the work.

Forward Outlook & Market Perspective

DEADLINE: What does the word "shonen" mean, by the way?

TRANSLATOR: I'll answer this. Shonen just means "young boy".

KOREEDA: In Japan, as far as the weekly magazines that are produced for young people to read, there's Shonen Jump, there's Shōnen Sunday, and then there's Shōnen Magazine, so there are these three. When I was growing up, I always read Shōnen Magazine, and there's kind of a division between young people, whether they prefer Jump or Magazine. And that's why I said I wasn't familiar with his work. But today, I would say Shonen Jump is the most powerful of the three, in that it continues to be really popular.

DEADLINE: Was it daunting to adapt something that is already visual? You're adapting a comic book with frames. How did it affect your filmmaking?

KOREEDA: I do understand that, in manga, the frame is already decided, but I would say that the cels of manga or comic books and the framing of a film are very different, in the sense that with a film, the size and ratio of your frame is set. But with manga, depending on the size and shape of the cel, it's a way to create a kind of rhythm and speed in the reading experience, and that's something, of course, that you can't really recreate in the filmic medium. So, there is the key visual of the manga, what I saw on the cover - the image of the back of the protagonist as they're drawing the manga.

But, of course, just recreating that doesn't make a film. And it was when I met Fujimoto - and I also met a professional assistant to manga artists - that I learned about the importance of sound in the process of writing manga. So, when you're listening to someone draw out a cel, the way that they might draw out the line and the speed and confidence with which they draw the line is really what tells you how professional and how skilled they are as a manga artist. And that's where I thought the sound is going to be very important to the film. I thought that the core of the film would revolve around this idea of watching the back of the protagonist. When they first put pen to paper, there's a sense of hesitation in the sound. Slowly, it builds up speed and becomes more positive. Then, by meeting their friend, one sound becomes two, and that sound then turns into a digital process. I knew that if I could build a film around this idea, it would be very simple yet powerful.

Reporting synthesized and verified under Nexvoro.tech editorial guidelines. Full primary records referenced via Deadline Hollywood.