We Are Aliens

Kitsch, cute and delightfully strange, cult Japanese filmmaker Ugana Kenichi’s latest is the sweetest sci-fi musical about an alien apocalypse you’ll see this year! With cuddly extraterrestrials and catchy songs We Are Aliens is an irresistibly fun, fluffy fable with a surprisingly profound humanist message.

In contemporary Tokyo, listless cleaner Seiya is taking a rooftop break when he meets a strange creature, a colourful fluffball with huge sad eyes. This is the first of the Moja, an alien army who have been sent to wipe out the human race as punishment for their destructive behaviour. Unphased, Seiya shares his problems with the Moja who, moved by the young man’s kindness, hesitates and starts questioning the mission. Over a series of chance encounters between humans and these cute new extraterrestrials, a profound interspecies friendship forms, while in the background the clock continues to tick until our scheduled (and perhaps deserved) annihilation.

Over ten years, Ugana Kenichi has established a reputation as a prolific voice in Japanese genre cinema. Here Ugana brings his love of practical effects, magical realism and deadpan humour to the gentlest alien apocalypse imaginable. With its combination of humanist philosophy, cuddly puppets and lo-fi aesthetics, We Are Aliens recalls Kore-eda Hirokazu meets Sesame Street, complete with catchy songs and surreal set pieces – (a Moja vs human rap battle; a musical number inside a stomach). Yet despite the conceptual silliness, beneath the novelty lies a sincere message about finding meaning in the little things.

– Rachel Pronger

Trailer

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