Before We Vanish (散歩する侵略者)

Before We Vanish (散歩する侵略者, Sanpo Suru Shinryakusha, literally "Strolling Invaders") is a 2017 Japanese science fiction drama directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, adapted from Tomohiro Maekawa's stage play of the same name. It stars Masami Nagasawa, Ryuhei Matsuda, and Hiroki Hasegawa, and premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2017 Cannes Film Festival before its Japanese theatrical release on September 9, 2017.^{1 • 2 • 3}

The concept-stealing device

The film's central mechanism is the theft of concepts. The aliens have mastered human language but must connect words to the concepts they symbolize before the invasion can begin, so they harvest what the film calls gainen (concepts), deep-rooted beliefs about family, possessions, self, work, and love, by touching a finger to a person's forehead. The giver is left physically unharmed but permanently loses all knowledge of the concept taken.^{6 • 7}

The consequences are dramatized through the townspeople. A woman who loses the concept of freedom bows in gestures of domestic servility; a man stripped of the notion of possession abandons his house and becomes a wandering prophet; an abusive boss who loses the meaning of work behaves like a destructive child in his own office. The film presents this loss ambiguously: as deprivation, but also, for some, as a strange liberation.⁸

Adaptation and production

Kurosawa adapted the play largely faithfully, keeping its setting in a town with a US military base nearby. In a Cannes interview he said the play's premise parodies alien-invasion science fiction of the 1950s, and that his task was to shift that premise to modern-day Japan, a genre he had long wanted to attempt. He explained that a full-scale, worldwide invasion story of the Hollywood kind was not feasible at Japanese production scale, and that the play's idea, a couple's story and events in one corner of a town standing in for the global situation, made the genre achievable.^{11 • 12}

The screenplay was co-written with Sachiko Tanaka, her third collaboration with Kurosawa as co-writer after Tokyo Sonata and Journey to the Shore.¹³ Yusuke Hayashi composed the music, Akiko Ashizawa was the cinematographer, and Koichi Takahashi the editor.² The film was produced by the "Before We Vanish" production committee with Django Film as production company, and was distributed by Shochiku and Nikkatsu.^{5 • 14}

Reception

The film premiered at Cannes in Un Certain Regard.² Critics frequently located it in the lineage of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and 1950s invasion cinema. The Japan Times's Mark Schilling called it a cleverly metaphoric science fiction film in which tension builds steadily.⁷ Film Comment named it Film of the Week, praising the concept-stealing device as the film's neatest idea and noting that, given the stakes of humanity's annihilation, it is a surprisingly domestic, sweet-natured affair.⁸ RogerEbert.com described it as a laid-back film that marries Atomic Age paranoia with Kurosawa's atmosphere-intensive style.¹⁵ Wendy Ide's Screen Daily review was more critical, judging the drama awkwardly paced and overlong and the special effects ropey.⁹ On the Japanese aggregator Kinenote the film held an average score of 71.4 out of 100 from about 1,050 users.¹⁰

Spin-off

Kurosawa also wrote and directed a spin-off drama, Yochō: Sanpo Suru Shinryakusha Gekijōban (Premonition: Before We Vanish Theatrical Version), released theatrically in 2017 while the main film was in cinemas. It stars Kaho, Shota Sometani, and Masahiro Higashide, and follows the same premise of aliens inhabiting human bodies and stealing concepts, but with a different tone and a more concentrated set of locations than the feature.^{12 • 16}

References

1. 散歩する侵略者 | 映画 | 日活 (Nikkatsu official page)
2. SANPO SURU SHINRYAKUSHA (BEFORE WE VANISH), Festival de Cannes
3. JFDB - 散歩する侵略者 (Before We Vanish)
4. Before We Vanish | NIKKATSU CORPORATION International Sales
5. 散歩する侵略者 : 作品情報 - 映画.com
6. Before We Vanish (散歩する侵略者) - The Japanese Film Festival Australia
7. 'Before We Vanish': Tension builds steadily during an alien attack, The Japan Times
8. Film of the Week: Before We Vanish, Film Comment
9. 'Before We Vanish': Cannes Review, Screen Daily
10. 散歩する侵略者 - 作品情報・映画レビュー - KINENOTE
11. Director Interview, Festival de Cannes (PDF)
12. 映画監督 黒沢清（『予兆 散歩する侵略者 劇場版』）OKWAVE アーカイブ
13. Before We Vanish Press Notes (PDF)
14. Before We Vanish, FANCINE 2017 catalog (PDF)
15. Before We Vanish movie review, RogerEbert.com
16. 『散歩する侵略者』考察とネタバレ, シネフィリー

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Science fiction and fantasy films (individual works) › Science fiction and fantasy films of the 2010s › Science fiction films of the 2010s › Titles symbols to I

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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