{"id":8105,"date":"2022-02-01T15:58:29","date_gmt":"2022-02-01T20:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=8105"},"modified":"2022-02-01T15:58:29","modified_gmt":"2022-02-01T20:58:29","slug":"kogonadas-after-yang-trailer-starring-colin-farrell-jodie-turner-smith-justin-h-min-haley-lu-richardson-opens-march-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=8105","title":{"rendered":"Kogonada’s AFTER YANG : Trailer \/ Starring Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Justin H. Min, Haley Lu Richardson – Opens March 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h3>\n

After Yang<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n

Synopsis<\/strong> : When his young daughter’s beloved companion \u2014 an android named Yang \u2014 malfunctions, Jake (Colin Farrell) searches for a way to repair him. In the process, Jake discovers the life that has been passing in front of him, reconnecting with his wife (Jodie Turner-Smith) and daughter across a distance he didn’t know was there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
RELEASE DATE<\/strong><\/h5>\n
\n

FRIDAY, MARCH 4 – IN THEATERS<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY<\/strong><\/div>\n
Kogonada<\/div>\n
(COLUMBUS)<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
STARRING<\/strong><\/div>\n
Colin Farrell<\/div>\n
Jodie Turner-Smith<\/div>\n
Justin H. Min<\/div>\n
Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja<\/div>\n
Haley Lu Richardson<\/div>\n
Sarita Choudhury<\/div>\n
Clifton Collins Jr.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Before Yang: Adapting the Screenplay\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m interested in the burden and beauty of everydayness,\u201d ex- plains director Kogonada, \u201cthat fine line between being stuck and being aware.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That tension is at the heart of his exquisite breakthrough feature, Columbus<\/i>. Set amid late-summer breezes in a quiet Indiana town\u2014a landscape marked by placid architectural se- renity and changing boldness (the midwestern community is an unlikely mecca of modernism)\u2014characters strain against family responsibilities that hold them back. Even so, as a way forward presents itself, the characters set off on their own dis- tinct and personal paths.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, Columbus <\/i>was filled with emotion, but in a very gentle way,\u201d says Colin Farrell, star of Kogonada\u2019s new film, After Yang<\/i>. \u201cIt was filled with space and had a kindness, a compassion to it. I feel like Kogonada has that as a man and as a filmmaker\u2014 After Yang <\/i>has it, too. He was an absolute joy to work with, I loved this experience.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bolder and more ambitious, After Yang <\/i>is, in many ways, an evolution in Kogonada\u2019s artistic journey. The story is science fiction: a tale about robotic \u201ctechnobeings,\u201d artificial intelli- gence, and cloning, all of it set in a subtly designed future that\u2019s been scarred by environmental hubris.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, the humanism at the heart of Columbus <\/i>is very much in evidence, attuned to spatial and emotional distances, to the ache of domestic obligations and the inner terrains of memory, time, and identity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was challenged by the inherent expectation of the extraordi- nary in the sci-fi genre, which often reveal mind-bending truths beyond the now,” Kogonada says. “I admittedly prefer truths\u00a0 <\/span>that reside in the ordinary. It\u2019s no doubt what drew me to the short story by Alexander Weinstein.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Weinstein\u2019s \u201cSaying Goodbye to Yang\u201d is a stunner, loaded with the kind of familiar yet radical ideas that mark the best specu- lative fiction. In it, a progressive American family has adopted a Chinese girl. One morning, they discover that the helper an- droid they\u2019ve purchased\u2014an older brother named Yang meant to ground her in Asian culture\u2014has malfunctioned, repeatedly smashing his face in his cereal. Can he be repaired before their daughter freaks out? The father telling us the story finds his day dominated by tense discussions at genius bars. Even- tually he reckons with something more profound.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI loved the everyday quality of his story,\u201d says Kogonada. \u201cIt\u2019s so utterly grounded. What if androids were as common as our phones or the human beings in our lives? I wanted to take this premise and ask if the truth to be discovered in this futuristic world was as ordinary as the memories we all carry now in our devices or more fluidly in our brains. What if Yang revealed what has always been true: that we are all ongoing records of love, of loss, of life, of time itself? We are all Yang. What starts out as an annoying task of getting an appliance repaired be- comes increasingly existential.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Weinstein\u2019s story is set in a future Detroit where residents are still resentful of Asian imports, and not only cars; an unspeci- fied but ruinous war has inflamed racial tensions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWeinstein did it really subtly,\u201d Kogonada says of the story\u2019s subtext, one that resonated with him as an Asian American and as someone who has adopted Korean children. \u201cAt first, I took Yang\u2019s ethnicity at face value. But the more I explored this idea of him, the more I realized that his Asianness was manufactured by a company. He was a construct of Asianness. In a strange way, I could identify with that.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The brevity of the story on the page was another attraction. \u201cIt takes place mostly over a day,\u201d Kogonada says, \u201csuch a beauti- ful little piece of structure, so well-written. I knew it would give me a lot of breadth to explore the things that were pressing upon me. What does it mean to be\u2014not even necessarily to be human, but to momentarily exist in this world?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Short stories have always been fertile ground for expressive filmmakers seeking more than just plot. It\u2019s a sci-fi tradition that goes back to the epoch-defining 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/i>, creatively expanded from Arthur C. Clarke\u2019s eight-page \u201cThe Sentinel,\u201d and includes A.I. Artificial Intelligence<\/i>, based on nov- elist Brian Aldiss\u2019s \u201cSupertoys Last All Summer Long\u201d<\/p>\n

After strongly considering filming in Detroit, and even visiting the city in person, Kogonada decided to shift away from set- ting the story in a specific place. \u201cI started to think about the film from the perspective of interior spaces, to build the world from inside out,\u201d he says. \u201cAt first, I thought we would only ever see the outside world through reflections or a door frame or window. Eventually, we included some exterior shots, but it is primarily an interior film.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That cozy sense of interiority wouldn\u2019t be dressed up in the typical futuristic hardware of a conventional sci-fi movie. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to see screens and monitors everywhere,\u201d recalls Kogonada. \u201cI wanted the technology to feel invisible. No wires, no switches. I wanted a future that was organic, more wood than metal, a future humbled by a climate catastrophe that had already happened.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While the specifics would never be stated, Kogonada cre- ated an ominous backstory to maintain Weinstein\u2019s hint of a spooked society. \u201cThere is no Detroit or Chicago because all cities have either been abandoned or significantly altered by the catastrophe.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After Yang<\/i>\u2019s first draft came together quickly, in about three months, the filmmaker estimates. Some new characters were invented, along with a fascinating history for Yang that wouldn\u2019t be revealed until the last act. It was time to begin sharing the script with potential collaborators\u2014including actors who would be playing humans, clones, or something else entirely.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ghosts in the Machine: Casting the Actors\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

After giving Weinstein\u2019s narrator a name, Jake, and developing his harried character into more of a sleuth\u2014who was Yang, really?\u2014Kogonada began considering suggestions for a lead actor. Colin Farrell, whose blockbuster Hollywood career has developed in tandem with an impressive commitment to more adventurous fare (The Lobster<\/i>, In Bruges<\/i>), was someone that the director could instantly envision in the role.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, I was immediately excited and open to that idea,\u201d Kogonada says. \u201cI\u2019ve loved his presence in films, big and small. There always seems to be something warring inside of his characters. In many ways, he\u2019s the embodiment of interiority. He\u2019s a poet disguised as a leading actor.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Farrell, who had seen Columbus <\/i>and was wowed by its quiet power, leapt at the opportunity.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cHe\u2019s an extraordinarily unique director,\u201d Farrell says. \u201cThe further I travel down this road as an actor, the more I value the ability of a filmmaker to create a world born of aesthetic sensibility and sound design. Kogonada\u2019s somebody who has a real vision for every aspect of his cinematic world. And he does it with passion and clarity\u2014he\u2019s an incredibly dignified man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jake runs a tea shop, this future\u2019s equivalent of owning a vinyl record store. He doesn\u2019t get a lot of foot traffic, but he\u2019s a committed husband and father. Yang\u2019s collapse spurs in Jake a mild midlife crisis, a retrospective yearning to share more of his life with the quasi-son who is now gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked about Jake\u2019s attempt to find something tangible and real,\u201d Farrell says, \u201cand yet something which maintained an air of mystery. And that\u2019s what the tea leaf represented to him. It was something he could smell, touch, plant, reap, infuse, ingest. And Yang represents the sincerity of something else\u2014of artifice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yang is a character straddling the old and the new. In their discussions before and during the shoot, Kogonada and Farrell also discussed Jake\u2019s status within his own family.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis wife is thriving in her career and as a mother. Meanwhile, he\u2019s struggling at both and becoming increasingly detached,\u201d Kogonada says. \u201cBut is there meaning to be found in taking on a more domestic role in the family? Or is there still some lingering bogus notion of manhood that must be overcome?\u201d<\/p>\n

The director remembers Farrell\u2019s willingness to tackle all these intricacies of a character whose initial frustration\u2014Yang may as well be just a broken toaster\u2014blooms into inchoate loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was masterful at playing the quiet notes, like a seasoned jazz player who understands the power of restraint and the beauty of an unassuming note that makes all the difference,\u201d Kogonada recalls. \u201cIt was a gift to see and experience. I was humbled by it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another actor willing to pour himself into the crevasses of a suggestive script was Justin H. Min, the rising co-star of Netflix\u2019s \u201cThe Umbrella Academy,\u201d who plays Yang with a combination of stoicism and unblinking sincerity\u2014even if it\u2019s just a function of his programming.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an Asian American, these are ideas that I think about all the time,\u201d Min says. \u201cWhat does it mean to be Asian? Is it because I can speak the language? Is it because I look a certain way? Is it because I know historical fun facts? Is that what constitutes my Asian identity? These are all things that are explored on an even deeper level with the idea of an \u2018Asian\u2019 robot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kogonada and his team underwent a thorough process to find the right Yang: an actor able to project a certain oddness without ever overdoing it. He and his team scoured a lot of audition tapes. \u201cThere was something about Justin\u2019s voice when he read for us that I found mesmerizing,\u201d the director recalls. \u201cI was leaning into the screen. For me, he was Yang. There was something so vulnerable and grounded about Justin\u2014but also a bit otherworldly. In our film, Yang is a mystery, and we find out there are layers and layers to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Min remembers his first reaction to reading Kogonada\u2019s script, while flying back from a Hawaiian vacation. It was very un- Yang. \u201cI just started to sob,\u201d he says, \u201cto the point where the person sitting next to me had to ask if everything was okay. I connected to it on a visceral level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pivotal family roles were filled by Jodie Turner-Smith (Queen & Slim) and gifted nine-year-old Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja; the former as Jake\u2019s wife Kyra, the latter as their daughter Mika. Both characters are thrown for a loop by Yang\u2019s sudden absence from their lives.<\/p>\n

For Mika, Kogonada explains, \u201cMalea was the first person we auditioned for the film, which was before we officially started the auditioning process, and it was clear that we had found our Mika. I saw a viral video of her singing the national anthem, and our casting director reached out to see if she could act. They put her on tape, and it was so evident. I believe she was just 6 or maybe 7 at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Jodie Turner-Smith, they found a perfect counterpart to Farrell\u2019s Jake\u2014someone who could project steady self- assurance as the family\u2019s matriarch and primary earner, but also show the character\u2019s quiet sensitivity as her partner and daughter are foundering with a growing sense of loss, a loss she initially has a hard time comprehending. \u201cJodie is, was, and will continue to be a revelation as an actor,\u201d Kogonada says. \u201cI believe that. She is so talented and contains so much inside her. She embodied Kyra with such grace and feeling. Kyra is a world in herself. Almost the human equivalent of Yang. But she\u2019s also carrying the burden of this family. When we see her asleep in the end, it\u2019s well deserved.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think in the beginning for Kyra, it’s definitely like, \u2018Okay, my husband’s running around trying to get the Uber fixed,\u2019\u201d Turner-Smith says, laughing. \u201cBut Yang\u2019s death becomes a sort of exploration for her. Playing Kyra spoke to all the quiet places in myself that I don’t often get to live inside, because when people see me as an actor, they often want something bolder, more brazen, harder. What really spoke to me here was that, while Kyra is powerful in the sense of achieving so much in her life, she is still a woman who is having this sensitive experience of feeling alone in the one place where she doesn’t want to\u2014her own family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rounding out the main cast of characters is mysterious Ada, bleached-blonde and Kohl-eyed. First seen sneaking around Jake\u2019s empty house when the family is out, Ada also appears in some of Yang\u2019s stored memories, a cipher. She has a connection to Yang that\u2019s best left for audiences to discover.<\/p>\n

For this pivotal role, a Kogonada addition to the short story, he had only one actor in mind: Haley Lu Richardson, the magnetic young actress who was a co-lead in Columbus and had key supporting turns in The Edge of Seventeen and Split.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis vibe is purely creative, collaborative and peaceful,\u201d says Richardson. \u201cI literally love him and I want to be in anything he ever makes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHaley Lu means so much to me\u201d says the director, grateful for their collaboration. \u201cI have a lot of trust in her. I put Columbus on her shoulders, and she carried it with such grace and determination. There was no place to hide in that film, not a lot of plot or coverage. She had to be present at all times, and she was more than that. Haley Lu attunes you to the moment and to unspoken layers of emotion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richardson admits to becoming obsessed with the idea of playing Ada, taking cues from the script but also the makeup and hairstyling. \u201cI was really transformed by those departments, which helped me find Ada even more,\u201d she says. \u201cShe has a desperation to find herself as her own person.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also has come to appreciate the rarity of an artist like Kogonada. \u201cI knew about the concept of \u2018less is more\u2019 but I didn’t understand fully how that correlates with acting and moviemaking until Columbus,\u201d Richardson says. \u201cHe just completely opened my mind to how much more powerful it can be when you use restraint and get people thinking about things instead of forcing a bunch of answers down their throat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Building the Future: Production Design, Cinematography, Music<\/b><\/p>\n

Uniquely for a film set decades from now, After Yang takes place mostly in a family\u2019s home: around the kitchen table, in low-lit bedrooms and hallways. This would need to be a special house, one that carried the signifiers of the script\u2019s environmental crisis while tapping Kogonada\u2019s preference for soft technology and a nearly-invisible futurism.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a science-fiction film that\u2019s concerned with hovercraft and lasers and space travel,\u201d says Farrell. \u201cIt\u2019s grounded in a world that, while not named, should be recognizable to all of us, because it\u2019s not too dissimilar to ours. We talked about it being on the brink of some cataclysmic global climate event, which led a return to a hybrid of urban and rural. It had taken hold within the cities of the world, where people had started growing their own crops on rooftops.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kogonada hoped to find a home that was unique but not big and luxurious, since the family was not wealthy. This proved to be a challenge. Would it be possible to find an Eichler-like home? Something like the small but airy midcentury \u201cCalifornia Modern\u201d structures developed by Joseph Eichler and characterized by large window walls, open floorplans, and central courtyards. \u201cWe talked quite a bit about having a tree at the center of it,\u201d Kogo- nada says, mentioning his love of the animator Hayao Miyazaki and his frequent incorporation of nature in his frame.<\/p>\n

As luck would have it, there were three Eichler homes just out- side of New York City in suburban Rockland County, the only three built on the East Coast. And one of them was empty.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t get in touch with the homeowner, so we drove around and found the house,\u201d says production designer Al- exandra Schaller. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t see inside because the house is designed to be very private, completely enclosed. So we knocked on the door. Nobody answered. And Kogonada said, \u2018I\u2019m just going to try the handle.\u2019 And it opened! It was un-lived- in, a blank canvas for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really stripped down to nothing: white walls, concrete floors,\u201d Kogonada remembers. \u201cIt just felt like, Ooh, this is our house now.\u201d<\/p>\n

After that initial act of trespassing, the production secured proper permission from the owner, completely renovating the house in the process of prepping it for a tight 29-day shoot.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted the tree to be a character in the movie,\u201d Schaller adds. \u201cChoosing it was very complex. I went to many orchards and greenhouses to meet the tree in person until we found this one. And we didn\u2019t cut it down at the end. We planted the tree, and the tree will live in that house forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like the sets, costumes (by designer Arjun Bhasin) were designed to indicate a shift away from synthetics, toward sus- tainability and renewable materials. \u201cAll the clothes we were wearing had no plastic,\u201d Richardson recalls. \u201cYou got a sense that certain things had happened offscreen, maybe dark things. People had gone through something heavy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked a lot about the relationship between emotions, human beings, and space,\u201d says cinematographer Benjamin Loeb (Mandy, Pieces of a Woman), working with Kogonada for the first time on After Yang. He recalls bonding over their mutual love of medium and wide shots, especially those by the master Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in a lot of situations where a director will say, \u2018This is an emotional moment so we need to be close on the face so we can see the eyes,\u2019\u201d Loeb says. \u201cTo the contrary, that actually harms the scene in some ways. Body language, emptiness, clut- ter\u2014that\u2019s really how my conversations with Kogonada sparked.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt immediately connected to Benjamin. We share a lot of the same sensibilities. We\u2019re just starting to scratch the surface of working together,\u201d Kogonada says. \u201cWe made it a ritual to eat ramen together throughout the production. We would discuss life and our approach to After Yang and to cinema in general. The broth we were consuming became the analogy for every- thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Figuratively speaking, the broth of any Kogonada film is his en- cyclopedic love of movies: a deep passion for film language and a gift for elegantly sharing those ideas with others. (Charmingly, Farrell calls him a \u201cprofessor.\u201d) For years, the director has craft- ed beloved short essay-films, many of which can be found in the supplemental features of the Criterion Collection, focusing on directors as varied as Wes Anderson, Terrence Malick, Darren Aronofsky, Hirokazu Kore-eda and Federico Fellini.<\/p>\n

After Yang is rich with cinematic references. It\u2019s a film in conver- sation with other films, but also with the idea of what it means to exist in this world (a Kogonada preoccupation). The centerpiece scene, a quiet knockout, is an intimate moment between Jake and Yang, drinking tea in the kitchen. They swirl the leaves and take a taste. They talk.<\/p>\n

Jake may be remembering this through a haze of grief, or maybe it\u2019s Yang himself, replaying the conversation endlessly in his memory banks. Jake quotes a passage from an old, half-re- membered documentary, 2007\u2019s All in This Tea, trotting out a semi-decent Werner Herzog impression. (\u201cColin actually has a top-shelf-level impersonation of Herzog that he determined he had to bring down a notch, because someone like Jake wouldn\u2019t have it,\u201d Kogonada reveals. \u201cIt\u2019s his half-Herzog.\u201d)<\/p>\n

But even in a referential mode, the scene has an emotional un- derpinning that elevates it beyond mere homage. Is it about a man who wishes he\u2019d savored these parental moments? Some-<\/p>\n

one who\u2019d dreamed of passing a trade down to a son? And what of the irony of an Asian robot who knows every factoid about the history of Chinese tea, but can\u2019t really taste or enjoy it? You hear the liquid sloshing in Yang\u2019s stomach reservoir, hollowly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat scene was about loss, about the death of a kind of naivete and innocence\u201d Farrell says. \u201cKogonada\u2019s stuff is so complex. There\u2019s so much going on. As an actor, he asks you to bring every bit of your humanity to the table, every fear, every hope, all the love you may feel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another ace cinematic reference comes with a song, sung by young Mika to her father. (Yang taught it to her, she explains.) \u201cI want to be…I want to be just like a melody\u201d sings Mika, un- aware of how heartbreaking such a lyric might sound from the mouth of a robot. Later, we watch Ada swaying in the balcony at a concert, singing the tune as well. It\u2019s another one of Yang\u2019s memories.<\/p>\n

The Beatles-esque song is \u201cGlide,\u201d from Japan\u2019s 2001 cult film All About Lily Chou-Chou. \u201cThat\u2019s been a dream of mine, to res- urrect that song,\u201d Kogonada says. \u201cThe film itself is about an Asian teenager who\u2019s getting bullied. He finds respite in this singer who\u2019s almost mythical. He becomes obsessed with her. Anyway, this song has haunted me for a long, long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the director reached out to the singer Mitski for After Yang\u2019s hypnotic new version of it, he found her to be an equally rabid fan of Lily Chou-Chou. There\u2019s also an additional theme composed expressly for Kogonada\u2019s film by Oscar-winning legend Ryuichi Sakamoto and the rest of the score composed by Aska Matsumiya.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still hard for me to believe that Sakamoto composed a theme for our film,\u201d says Kogonada. \u201cHe\u2019s been my favorite com- poser for a long while. It was a dream just to get to meet him and let him know how much he and his music meant to me. That he took time to engage the film, that we were able to interact, that he bought me a book, it\u2019s all too much, really. But I\u2019ll take it to my grave and smile or hum.\u201d<\/p>\n

The filmmaker continues, \u201cAska was the perfect compliment to Sakamoto. She, too, was a life-long fan of Sakamoto, but she has also been deeply influenced by his work, not just as a film composer, but as an experimental musician. Like Sakamoto, Aska is classically trained but turned her attention toward ex- perimental and underground music and now composes for films and art installations. She\u2019s a force all her own. She was able to take Sakamoto\u2019s theme and create an entire score for the film. Part of her process was feeding Sakamoto\u2019s theme to an AI pro- gram that would regurgitate it and transform it into something new.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fittingly for a movie about memories (and thus making movies), the family finds itself in front of a video camera at one point. There\u2019s a global dance-off they compete in, the four of them synchronizing their steps and hoping to advance to the next round. \u201cI could see a world in which we do that with each other,\u201d Min says. \u201cTo a certain extent, we do it already. I just wish I knew how to dance better.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Kogonada, looking at the ways we engage memory felt worthwhile.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was interested in exploring the difference between human memories and technological recordings. In the film, there are primarily two ways we re-experience the past: through the objective, pov-recordings of Yang and through the subjective, fluctuating recollections of Jake and Kyra.\u201d Kogonada says. \u201cI remember a distinct moment when I decided that I would stop recording the school performances of my sons and just let them enter into the flux of my memories. The fear was that I would forget and never be able to re-experience this moment as it appeared through the lens of my phone. But for me, there is something lovely about the way memory will alter an event as time passes, often making it more poignant or relevant or elu- sive.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a scene that unwittingly links After Yang to our own Zoom-saturated moment and, by extension, another real-life environmental crisis, the pandemic. The echo isn\u2019t lost on the di- rector, who addresses it by way of an insightful movie reference.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the many things I love about Ozu\u2019s Tokyo Story is that it\u2019s partly about the devastation of the city after the firebombings of World War II,\u201d he says. \u201c100,000 dead. A million homeless. None of this devastation is ever mentioned, nor do we see much of postwar Tokyo. But the film is haunted by a profound sense of loss. It\u2019s a ghost story disguised as a family drama.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the moment, our whole world is experiencing the trauma of a global crisis. It\u2019s in that context that we ask: Where do we find meaning? The loss of life, and the way we\u2019ve responded to it, sometimes very poorly, can be overwhelming. But I hope my film has a relationship to the now, whether it\u2019s the pandemic or just life itself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After Yang Synopsis : When his young daughter’s beloved companion \u2014 an android named Yang \u2014 malfunctions, Jake (Colin Farrell) searches for a way to repair him. In the process, Jake discovers the life that has been passing in front of him, reconnecting with his wife (Jodie Turner-Smith) and daughter across a distance he didn’t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[1079,6591,5906,476,6595,813,6593,6592,6594,1083],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nKogonada's AFTER YANG : Trailer \/ Starring Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Justin H. Min, Haley Lu Richardson - Opens March 4 | Cinema Daily US<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=8105\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kogonada's AFTER YANG : Trailer \/ Starring Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Justin H. Min, Haley Lu Richardson - Opens March 4 | Cinema Daily US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After Yang Synopsis : When his young daughter’s beloved companion \u2014 an android named Yang \u2014 malfunctions, Jake (Colin Farrell) searches for a way to repair him. In the process, Jake discovers the life that has been passing in front of him, reconnecting with his wife (Jodie Turner-Smith) and daughter across a distance he didn’t...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=8105\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cinema Daily US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-02-01T20:58:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/After-Yang-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1342\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nobuhiro Hosoki\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nobuhiro Hosoki\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"19 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=8105\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=8105\",\"name\":\"Kogonada's AFTER YANG : Trailer \/ Starring Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Justin H. Min, Haley Lu Richardson - Opens March 4 | Cinema Daily US\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=8105#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=8105#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/After-Yang-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-02-01T20:58:29+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-02-01T20:58:29+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#\/schema\/person\/a39aff30168e5736b19e3486a7747bd3\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=8105#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=8105\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=8105#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/After-Yang-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/After-Yang-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1342},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=8105#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Kogonada’s AFTER YANG : Trailer \/ Starring Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Justin H. Min, Haley Lu Richardson – Opens March 4\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/\",\"name\":\"Cinema Daily US\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#\/schema\/person\/a39aff30168e5736b19e3486a7747bd3\",\"name\":\"Nobuhiro Hosoki\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Nobuhiro-Hosoki-150x150.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Nobuhiro-Hosoki-150x150.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Nobuhiro Hosoki\"},\"description\":\"Nobuhiro Hosoki grew up watching American films since he was a kid; he decided to go to the United States thanks to seeing the artistry of Stanley Kubrick's \\\"A Clockwork Orange.\u201d After graduating from film school, he worked as an assistant director on TV Tokyo\u2019s program called \\\"Morning Satellite\\\" at the New York branch office but he didn\u2019t give up on his interest in cinema. He became a film reporter for via Yahoo Japan News. In that role, he writes news articles, picks out headliners for Yahoo News, as well as interviewing Hollywood film directors, actors, and producers working in the domestic circuit in the USA. He also does production interviews for Japanese distributors of American films and for in-theater on-sale programs. He is now the editor-in-chief of Cinemadailyus.com while continuing his work for Japan.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.cinemadailyus.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?author=2\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Kogonada's AFTER YANG : Trailer \/ Starring Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Justin H. Min, Haley Lu Richardson - Opens March 4 | Cinema Daily US","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=8105","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Kogonada's AFTER YANG : Trailer \/ Starring Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Justin H. Min, Haley Lu Richardson - Opens March 4 | Cinema Daily US","og_description":"After Yang Synopsis : When his young daughter’s beloved companion \u2014 an android named Yang \u2014 malfunctions, Jake (Colin Farrell) searches for a way to repair him. In the process, Jake discovers the life that has been passing in front of him, reconnecting with his wife (Jodie Turner-Smith) and daughter across a distance he didn’t...","og_url":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=8105","og_site_name":"Cinema Daily US","article_published_time":"2022-02-01T20:58:29+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2560,"height":1342,"url":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/After-Yang-scaled.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Nobuhiro Hosoki","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Nobuhiro Hosoki","Est. reading time":"19 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=8105","url":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=8105","name":"Kogonada's AFTER YANG : Trailer \/ Starring Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Justin H. Min, Haley Lu Richardson - Opens March 4 | Cinema Daily US","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=8105#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=8105#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/After-Yang-scaled.jpg","datePublished":"2022-02-01T20:58:29+00:00","dateModified":"2022-02-01T20:58:29+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#\/schema\/person\/a39aff30168e5736b19e3486a7747bd3"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=8105#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=8105"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=8105#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/After-Yang-scaled.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/After-Yang-scaled.jpg","width":2560,"height":1342},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=8105#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Kogonada’s AFTER YANG : Trailer \/ Starring Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Justin H. Min, Haley Lu Richardson – Opens March 4"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/","name":"Cinema Daily US","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#\/schema\/person\/a39aff30168e5736b19e3486a7747bd3","name":"Nobuhiro Hosoki","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Nobuhiro-Hosoki-150x150.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Nobuhiro-Hosoki-150x150.jpg","caption":"Nobuhiro Hosoki"},"description":"Nobuhiro Hosoki grew up watching American films since he was a kid; he decided to go to the United States thanks to seeing the artistry of Stanley Kubrick's \"A Clockwork Orange.\u201d After graduating from film school, he worked as an assistant director on TV Tokyo\u2019s program called \"Morning Satellite\" at the New York branch office but he didn\u2019t give up on his interest in cinema. He became a film reporter for via Yahoo Japan News. In that role, he writes news articles, picks out headliners for Yahoo News, as well as interviewing Hollywood film directors, actors, and producers working in the domestic circuit in the USA. He also does production interviews for Japanese distributors of American films and for in-theater on-sale programs. He is now the editor-in-chief of Cinemadailyus.com while continuing his work for Japan.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.cinemadailyus.com"],"url":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?author=2"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8105"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}