General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Maborosi (幻の光)

Maborosi (幻の光, Maboroshi no hikari, literally "light of an illusion") is a 1995 Japanese drama film directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, his first fiction feature after a career in television documentary. Adapted from Teru Miyamoto's novel, it follows Yumiko, a young woman haunted by the disappearance of her grandmother and the unexplained suicide of her first husband, as she remarries and moves to a coastal village on the Sea of Japan. The film won the Golden Osella for cinematography at the 1995 Venice Film Festival and established Kore-eda's international reputation.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Original title	幻の光 (Maboroshi no hikari); English release title Maborosi, also known as Illusion³
Director / debut	First fiction feature by Hirokazu Kore-eda, previously a documentary director at TV Man Union¹
Source	Novel by Teru Miyamoto; screenplay by Yoshihisa Ogita³
Cast	Makiko Esumi (Yumiko), Takashi Naitô (Tamio), Tadanobu Asano (Ikuo)⁴
Technical	110 minutes, 35 mm color, Japanese language, produced by TV Man Union³
Japan release	December 9, 1995⁴
Principal awards	Golden Osella for Best Cinematography, Venice 1995; Golden Lion nominee; Gold Hugo at Chicago; Dragons and Tigers Award at Vancouver²

Spoilers

Plot

At the age of 12, Yumiko loses her grandmother and regrets not having been able to stop her as she walked away. As an adult she marries Ikuo, and the couple lives peacefully with their young son Yuichi until, without explanation, Ikuo commits suicide; the only thing he leaves behind is the key of his bicycle.⁵

Five years later Yumiko remarries Tamio, a widower with a young daughter named Tomoko, and moves with her son to his home in a small village on the Sea of Japan in the Noto Peninsula. Days pass quietly and she seems at peace, but when she returns to her home town for her brother's wedding, the memory of Ikuo, whose suicide she has never understood, comes back to haunt her.⁵^•⁶ The film traces her attempts to cope with and comprehend her bereavement, ending in a movement toward love, understanding, and a sense of peace.⁷

Production

Kore-eda began his career as an assistant director on television documentaries at TV Man Union, where producer Naoe Gōtsu planned and produced the company's first feature film.¹^•⁸ In a later interview he recalled that the film was begun with no distributor attached and without sufficient funding: where 100 million yen would have been needed, only 50 million was available. Believing that no distributor or theater would commit unless the film won a prize abroad, he entered it at the Venice Film Festival.⁹

Kore-eda adapted Miyamoto's story with changes of emphasis. In the original story, Yumiko sits at a window and speaks to her dead first husband, her gaze over the Sea of Japan; Kore-eda's film gives her a wider world than a single room.¹ Carrying over habits from his documentary years, he instructed cinematographer Masao Nakabori to draw on techniques from both fiction and non-fiction film, and the entire film was shot in natural light.¹^•¹⁰ Nakabori answered with what Japanese sources describe as a serene visual beauty built on delicate expressions of light.⁸

Style and critical reception

The film is composed mostly of long takes and static camera set-ups, with de-dramatized narration; its sole medium close-up heightens a shot-reverse-shot sequence in which a couple exchange gazes through a factory window door. Reviewers have consistently invoked the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu and the Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien as points of comparison, and scholars have treated Ozu's cinema as a model Kore-eda appropriates for his own treatment of loss, trauma, and memory.¹^•¹¹ The BFI has described the film as an instance of technical minimalism that speaks to the ineffable nature of death and the questions it leaves behind.¹

In Japan the film placed fourth in Kinema Junpo's annual Best Ten critics' poll.⁸ At the 52nd Venice International Film Festival it competed for the Golden Lion and won the Golden Osella for the quality of the photography.³^•² It went on to win the Gold Hugo for Best Feature at the Chicago International Film Festival and the Dragons and Tigers Award at Vancouver, where it was tied with Goldfish (1995). Makiko Esumi won Newcomer of the Year at the Awards of the Japanese Academy, the Sponichi Grand Prize New Talent Award at the Mainichi Film Concours, and the Blue Ribbon Award for Best New Actress, while Chen Ming-chang's score won the Mainichi award for Best Film Score. The film recorded 9 wins and 1 nomination overall.²

Distribution and later life

After its festival run the film received theatrical releases in Western countries, including the Netherlands in 1997 and Sweden in 1998, with Celluloid Dreams handling worldwide sales.¹² Box Office Mojo records a lifetime worldwide gross of $247,297, including a 2019 United Kingdom re-release that added $13,161.¹³

The film's reputation grew with its director's. After Kore-eda won the Palme d'Or at Cannes for Shoplifters in 2018, the BFI re-released Maborosi in a UK-wide tour reaching 48 cities, alongside a Blu-ray edition and a BFI Player collection, and the film has since been revived in 35 mm retrospectives such as Milestone Films' anniversary program.¹⁴^•⁷ Kore-eda himself has said that the recognition his debut received made his second film possible, and that the Venice experience taught him that a festival is a start rather than a finish, prompting him to seek a sales agent of his own.¹⁵^•⁹

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1990s › Drama films late 1990s › Released 1995 to 1998

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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