The Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-eda has long been fascinated with the definition of family, chronicling how it can shift in films like “Nobody Knows,” “Shoplifters,” and “Monster.” He’s a deeply empathetic, subtle filmmaker, and he brings his notable skill set to his second dramatic series for Netflix, the family saga “Asura,” now available around the world. His gentle touch with character holds together a project that sometimes feels longer than it needs to be. Still, that extended runtime allows Kore-eda to come at his complex characters from multiple emotional angles, and for us to see ourselves a bit in all of them.
Kore-eda wrote and directed all seven episodes of this adaptation of the ‘70s Japanese novel of the same name by Mukoda Kuniko, the story of a father’s infidelity and how it sends ripples out to his daughters and the people in their lives. Set in Tokyo, “Asura” stars the legendary Jun Kunimura (“The Wailing”) as an ordinary septuagenarian patriarch with four grown daughters. The shyest of his girls, Takiko (Yu Aoi), hires a private investigator to look into her suspicions about her father and discovers that not only does dad have a mistress, but there’s a child in his life that calls him papa. The excellent premiere episode centers on Takiko telling her sisters and watching how differently they react to the news that they may have never really known their dad, spiraling through panic, sadness, and maybe even just a form of resigned acceptance. Do they tell mom, played by Keiko Matsuzaka? Confront dad? Or should they respect the privacy of their parents?
Of course, given how much Kore-eda values character over concept, the key to “Asura” is in the three-dimensionality of the sisters. Takiko seems the most fragile of the four, but her life changes when she starts dating the shy private investigator who blew her family’s life apart. The oldest sister, Tsunako (Rie Miyazawa), handles the news unexpectedly because she happens to be the other woman for her boss; youngest sister Hire (Kisetsu Fujiwara) seems to almost accept dad’s infidelity because she knows her boxer boyfriend has the same tendencies; finally, Machiko Ono gives the best performance in the show as Makiko, a mother of two and husband to Takao (Masahiro Motoki), who makes excuses for his father-in-law probably because he plans to follow the same path someday.
The infidelity that kicks off “Asura” is really just a catalyst to unpack the lives of these characters in what becomes a family saga that includes funerals, weddings, and a bunch of things in between. Interestingly, one could almost watch the first three hours as a feature film with a solid ending. Then Kore-eda picks up the characters down the road of their lives, detailing how what unfolded between these sisters and their parents shifted their trajectories. Can good come from something that rattles a family? Takiko seems to find marital bliss with the man who helped shatter the same for her parents—what a great idea for a melodrama that is on its own, forcing us to look at how even the worst days of our lives can play a role in our best ones.
Seven hours feels a bit long for “Asura,” and Kore-eda has a habit of lingering in the runtime, repeating a few character beats, especially around chapters five and six, when it feels like the show has lost some of the momentum from its rich characters. Still, it’s never boring because of how much Kore-eda values the emotional journeys of his characters, and how he directs an entire cast to nary a single weak performance (and several great ones).
“Squid Game” has dominated the Netflix charts for the last couple weeks, reportedly opening to higher streaming numbers than anything in the history of the company. While it doesn’t have nearly the same hook as the show about a killer competition, my hope is that a few of those viewers slide over to the woefully-underpromoted “Asura,” proving to Netflix that there’s space for both kinds of shows in their catalog. And maybe leading a few viewers to one of the best filmmakers in the world.
Whole series screened for review. Now on Netflix.
