Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda well known for his work, as editor, screenwriter and director won the Palm d Ore at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018 for the film Shoplifters.

The film tells the story of Osamu (Lily Franklin) a construction worker who lives in poverty with his wife Nobuyo (Sakura Ando) Shota (Kairi Jo) and an elderly woman Hatsue (Kirin Kiki). Osamu shoplifts store with Shota in order to survive and find enough food to eat for the rest of the family.

One day, Osamu and Nobuyo are walking thru the neighborhood when they find Yuri Hojo (Miyu Sasaki) locked in a balcony. The night is very cold, so they decided to rescue her for the night. Yuri lives with an abusive mom who doesn't take care of her.

The next day Osamu and Nobuyo decided that Yuri must stay with them because they feel she will be better with them. Yuri bonds with the family and learn how to shoplift too while at the same time the family learns on television that Yuri was reported missing and the police are looking for her.

Hirokazu Kore-eda explores with this movie some the incongruities in life. Yuri lives better with an adoptive life that are sorta social criminals who steal to survive than with her abusive mom who doesn't care about her.

Life is hard in any city of the world, however for a city like Tokyo always presented as a cosmopolitan city, to me is quite impressive to see the levels of poverty. The simplicity of this film seems to channel Yasujirō Ozu and his vision of social injustice in Japan as well as people's life seen by the eyes of spectators who want to be a fly on the wall.

Shoplifters is an eye-opening film that needs to be seen by an audience who deserve to hear stories about the struggle in Asian cities.