Shoplifters is one of my favorite movies, so I had high expectations for Asura. But at first I felt disappointed: it seemed quite banal; but I did keep watching. Luckily I did, because I was very wrong: there's so much in here about what it means to be human, to live, to love, to suffer and to care for people around you. Beautiful.

Watered down version of the old W&G shorts.

I'm a big fan of Steve McQueen's movies, but in this case I was a bit disappointed.
The movie is beautifully filmed but overall it was... a bit bland? It definitely lacks the almost extreme intensity of Hunger, Shame or 12 years a slave which I really loved.
There's a race angle which offers a view on the era that is rarely shown, but apart from that it still remains a simple, bittersweet story with a bunch of characters that are more stereotypes than actual interesting people.
Fortunately there's a cat; that's always a plus.

There's a good movie in there, but it's hiding in the 3 hours of footage I watched. Good acting though.