Director: Ryuichi Hiroki
Made to mark a Japanese network's sixtieth anniversary, "All Lives" pairs a doctor confronting his own struggles with a patient running out of time.
What is All Lives about?
Produced as TV Tokyo's sixtieth-anniversary special, "All Lives" centers on a physician whose professional confidence has been shaken by difficulties in his own life, and a patient who has recently learned that his remaining time is short. Rather than staying within the walls of a hospital, the two men's paths lead them on a journey across different places as they search for something closer to an answer than a diagnosis: what a life amounts to, and what a person leaves behind once it ends. The film moves between the doctor's private doubts and the patient's attempt to make sense of an ending he did not choose, using their shared travel to slowly draw out what each man has been avoiding saying out loud.
Cast & crew
Satoshi Tsumabuki and Ken Watanabe anchor the film in the two central roles, supported by Tomoyo Harada, Hikari Mitsushima, and Aya Omasa. The ensemble brings a mix of veteran and mid-career Japanese screen actors to a story built around long conversations and shared silences rather than plot twists.
Context & significance
"All Lives" was produced in 2024 as a milestone television special for TV Tokyo, a format the network has used before to commission ambitious, feature-length dramas from established directors. Ryuichi Hiroki, known for character-driven films that favor emotional restraint, directs a story that leans on Japanese television's long tradition of the road-trip drama as a vehicle for examining mortality and purpose.
Where & how to watch
"All Lives" is available on K-Time with Persian dubbing over the original Japanese audio. The film's page can be browsed by anyone at no cost; watching requires signing in with a K-Time account. K-Time is built around the Farsi-speaking diaspora, giving Persian-speaking viewers a dubbed way into a story that would otherwise require reading dense, dialogue-heavy subtitles.