Kazoku (2023) Blu-ray Standard Edition

Seiki Tsuchida debuted as a manga artist at 17, creating works including Miseinen, Henshuo and Kumo Izuru Tokoro. Under the Same Moon won an Excellence Award at the 1999 Japan Media Arts Festival. While building his career as a popular author, he died suddenly in 2012. Kazoku adapts his unfinished final work, which strongly reflects the life of this legendary artist whose influence reached Taiyo Matsumoto and many other manga creators.

The film is written and directed by Kazuhiro Sawataishi, the costume designer of 13 Assassins and Rurouni Kenshin and a character designer for au's Santaro commercials. Working under the name Kan Sawa, he has also held photography exhibitions in Japan and China. He makes his directorial debut with Ryo Yoshizawa, Masatoshi Nagase, Shun Oguri and Shinnosuke Abe, listed in order of appearance.

After his father disappears, Makoto and his mother leave the town they know for a new one. Kenji lives quietly with his common-law wife Haruka, who carries a secret. Takeo, raising two children alone after losing his wife, takes them on a drive to the sea. Yuichi returns to his family home after a long absence and is led into the forest by a woman calling his name. Four men and their four families become intricately entwined in a quiet lyrical portrait of movement from loss toward renewal.

Music is by stage musician Kanoko Tanagawa, performed by SPAC, with special music-production cooperation from Satoshi Miyagi. Koichi Shimizu handles sound design and Hideo Yamamoto cinematography. The standard edition contains the 83-minute main film on one region-free Blu-ray, with Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio stereo and 5.1-channel audio and no subtitles.