License to Live (1998)
"Ningen gôkaku" (original title)

Yoshi, aged 24, awakes after 10 years in a coma, goes on to start a new life and rebuild his family.

Director:

Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Writer:

Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Stars:

Hidetoshi Nishijima, Shun Sugata, Lily

3 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Hidetoshi Nishijima	...	Yutaka
Shun Sugata	...	Shinichiro
Lily	...	Sachiko
Kumiko Asô	...	Chizuru
Shô Aikawa	...	Kazaki
Yoriko Dôguchi	...	Miki
Ren Ohsugi	...	Murota
Hiromitsu Suzuki	...	Kurume
Kosuke Toyohara	...	Doctor
Kôji Yakusho	...	Fujimori
Masahiro Toda	...	Akira Ueda
Michiko Yamamura	...	Ueda's Mother
Tarô Suwa
Akira Otaka	...	Garbage Man
Masaharu Ishibashi	...	News Announcer

Storyline

Yutaka was fourteen years old when he was run over by a car and fell into a coma. Now, ten years later, he wakes up and realizes that his family is not intact anymore: father, mother and sister live at different places. Yutaka decides to re-open the pony farm that his family once ran.

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Plot Keywords:

coma | father son relationship | family relationships

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Genres:

Drama | Comedy

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Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

23 January 1999 (Japan)

Also Known As:

License to Live

Company Credits

Production Co:

Daiei Studios

Technical Specs

Runtime:

109 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

User Reviews

This, and Then...

Young man Yutaka emerges unexpectedly from a long coma. The coma resulted from a no-blame accident in which his father's friend Fujimori, played by Koji Yakusho, had nonetheless played a part. Fujimori, to sooth his own conscience, takes the boy in. Various people from the past come and go. Most of the action takes place in Fujimori's decrepit... Anyway…I had to watch this on a video dub. The film's neither good nor bad. But I can't bring myself to go back to the dub and check details. Maybe it was a fishery. A lot of cleaning a wide shadow indoor pool. If you're a fan of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, License to Live's fascinatingly unlike both the Tarkovsky-like not-quite-horror films most of us know and the Godard-like yakuza stuff (I've only managed to see two, I think Eyes of the Spider and Serpent's Path) that preceded. If you're a fan of Koji Yakusho (despite IMDb's listing his part is as big as, if not bigger than, the young man's), this very slightly written role foreshadows his intricate turn in Shinji Aoyama's Eureka.