COMPLETION REPORT
Young adult and middle adult as the center social interactions:
Case Study of Kore-eda Hirokazu Cinema
Ms. Dinh My Linh (+2)
Researcher
Institute of Cultural Studies, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences
In Kore-eda’s films, adult characters deal with crises that are compatible with developmental stages proposed by
the psychologist Erik H. Erikson. These crises can be categorized into four main questions: identity, generation
gap, marriage interaction, and make a living. In contemporary urban society, however, in the age range of 20 to30, they are forced into three main crises of their lives (identity, intimacy, generativity) that ought to happen in theage range of 12 to 55. When choosing a stable life towards norms of the society, and at the same time, refusing thetrue identity of their own, adult would become restrained egos or hollow individuals. The very condition might
have happiness got out of their hands or cause harmful effects to the society.
In our research based on adulthood, it might be concluded that Kore-eda’s choice of theme in each film depends
on his own concerns closely corresponding to every developmental stage in his personal life. These take part informing his cinematic style. That is Kore-eda’s decision of neutral viewpoint, stay off sensational feeling anddoctrine, permanently deeply look into mind of all kind of people but not choose any concrete answer fordilemmas which adult have to endure.
To the question “What is your definition of adult?”, most of Vietnamese viewers indicate that the adult should bea person of independent thinking, self-made decisions and being responsible to decisions related to himself/herself,family, and career. At the same time, that person should be capable of economically supporting himself/herself andhis/her blood relations (nuclear family, old parents). This kind of definition includes 50 answers/77 questionnaires
collected from two screenings of Still Walking. Therefore, definitions of adult gathered from viewers are basicallysimilar to the term “adult” that we use in the research.
According to 157 questionnaires collected from viewers in the four of screenings, primary crises of Vietnamese
adulthood might be presented as below:- Dealing with him/herself (31 answers)- Contradiction to imposed views of their families and social prejudices (39 answers)- Dealing with differences of generation gap (52 answers)- Dealing with choice of helpmate, getting married, marriage, and matters of his/her own family such as
shouldering the burnden, maintaing its activities, bahaving towards and managing its conflicts (31 answers)- Building career and proving his/her capabilities at work (33 answers)- Balancing family and career (24 answers)
When mentioning the above crises, viewers also reveal that some of social problems appear to be more obviously
noticeable in Vietnam than in Japan because the former gets lower standard of living and the burden of making aliving prevents individual from being fully aware of issues they are encountering. This might explain why Koreeda’s films of pure concerns hardly should be the first choice to introduce to broad-based viewers. However, someof problems that Japanese society is dealing with currently start to emerge in big cities in Vietnam and become
popular in the entire society sooner or later. And this gives Kore-eda’s films a chance to meet their own audiencesin Vietnam.

Publication of the Results of Research Project:
Verbal Presentation (Date, Venue, Name of Conference, Title of Presentation, Presenter, etc.)- July 18, 2015, University of Social Sciences and Humanities_Hanoi, Seminars of young researchers: New
researches on Japan and Asia, Young adult and middle adult as the center of social interactions: Case study ofKore-eda cinema, Tran Truc Ly
Thesis (Name of Journal and its Date, Title and Author of Thesis, etc.)

Book (Publisher and Date of the Book, Title and Author of the Book, etc.)