Grief and an unlikely visitor set the story in motion in Phases of the Moon, a Japanese drama directed by Ryuichi Hiroki that blends everyday sorrow with a touch of the fantastical. What begins as one man's mourning slowly widens into a puzzle about how separate lives can be quietly bound together.
What is Phases of the Moon about?
Osanai Kei has built a contented life with his wife Kozue and daughter Ruri until an accident takes them from him, leaving his ordinary happiness gone almost overnight. Some time later, a man named Misumi Akihiko arrives at his door with an unusual claim: on the day Kozue and Ruri died, young Ruri — a complete stranger to him — had apparently been on her way to see him. Misumi also tells Kei about a woman named Masaki Ruri he once loved, someone with no obvious connection to Kei's family. As Kei tries to make sense of these overlapping names and half-explained coincidences, the film follows how people who appear to have nothing to do with one another turn out to be tied together by feeling rather than by any ordinary logic.
About the cast
Yo Oizumi plays Kei with a restrained, grief-worn quality that carries the film's quieter stretches, while Kasumi Arimura brings a different emotional register to the woman at the center of Misumi's account. Ren Meguro, Ko Shibasaki, Sairi Ito, Kei Tanaka and the rest of the cast fill out a story that moves between several characters' points of view rather than staying fixed on one.
Context & significance
Director Ryuichi Hiroki, known for drama-first Japanese cinema across a long career, adapts a story that leans on coincidence and connection as much as plot mechanics, giving Phases of the Moon a gentler, more contemplative pace than a conventional mystery or romance. The film's structure rewards patience, letting names and relationships resurface gradually rather than explaining them up front, and it has drawn attention as a showcase for Oizumi and Arimura working in a lower-key register than some of their better-known roles.
Watching Phases of the Moon on Ktime
Phases of the Moon is available on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles, so it can be watched dubbed in Farsi or in the original Japanese with Farsi captions. Reading this page costs nothing, and watching only requires logging into a free K-Time account, part of a Farsi-first streaming experience built for Persian-speaking viewers wherever they are.