Departures
(DVD)

Title and credits transliterated from the Japanese.

DVD release of the 2008 motion picture.

Special features: interview with director Yôjirô Takita.

Director of photography, Takeshi Hamada ; editor, Akimasa Kawashima ; music, Joe Hisaishi.

Masahiro Motoki, Ryoko Hirosue, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Kimiko Yo, Tetta Sugimoto, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Takashi Sasano.

Daigo Kobayashi is a devoted cellist in an orchestra that has just been dissolved and finds himself without a job. He decides to move back to his old hometown with his wife to look for work and start over. He answers a classified ad entitled 'Departures' thinking it is an advertisement for a travel agency. He discovers that the job is actually for a 'Nokanshi' or 'encoffineer,' a funeral professional who prepares deceased bodies for burial and entry into the next life. While his wife and others despise the job, Daigo takes a certain pride in his work and begins to perfect the art, acting as a gentle gatekeeper between life and death, between the departed and the family of the departed.

MPAA rating: PG-13; for some thematic elements.

DVD ; Region 1 ; widescreen (1.85:1) presentation ; Dolby Digital 5.1 surround.

In Japanese, with English subtitles.