Like Father, Like Son tells how two families deal with the bombshell revelation that their six-year-old sons were switched at birth. Director Hirokazo Kore-da, whose marvelous ouevre continues its focus on children facing unusual predicaments, leads us through an impossibly heartwrenching situation without a touch of melodrama. Some of this is a wry mirror held up to the class contrast between the two families. But you get an impression that both families have, in their different ways of expressing it, an underlying compassion for doing the right thing. That is, of course, once they first tackle the enormous hurdle of determining how to proceed.
There is the temptation to toss aside beginning anew with a relative stranger and cling to the child that has become part of your very soul after six years. The sensitive Midori (Machiko Ono) feels this dilemma and a further one, of guilt. “Why didn’t I see it?” she asks herself. Her son Keita (Keita Ninomiya) will soon be shuffled to play dates with his real parents, the Saikis. Their son, Ryusei (Shogun Hwang) has two siblings and is part of tight-knit, loose and fun loving blue collar family. They actually bathe together and seem to have a lot of laughs.
Conversely, Keita’s dad, Ryota (Masahor Fukyama) is a no-nonsense, far more authoritative father. He could stand to be more loving with his only-child son, and Like Father, Like Son will present him with an ample chance to do so. As usual Kore-da is incredible with his children actors, similar to his films Nobody Knows, where two kids separated by divorce seek to reunite, and Nobody Knows, where four kids live on their own without a parent or guardian.
Like Father, Like Son presents a bewildering struggle. On the one hand, one’s loved ones remain precisely that regardless of genes. On the other hand, recognizing the necessity of letting go, and adhering to custom and law. At one point Midori wonders, “Is there a manual for this situation?” Of course there isn’t, but Kore-da approaches the devastatingly difficult with a tender, knowing eye that cuts to the core of the dilemma