Japan Synopsis
ドライブ・マイ・カー
“Go on living.”
Yusuke Kafuku, a stage actor and director, still unable, after two years, to cope with the loss of his beloved wife, accepts to direct Uncle Vanya at a theater festival in Hiroshima. There he meets Misaki, an introverted young woman, appointed to drive his car. In between rides, secrets from the past and heartfelt confessions will be unveiled.
Audience Engagement
1,034 audience reviews — more than 97% of Japan films in our index.
Review volume (97th percentile) outruns trending popularity (82th) — a durable title with sustained audience attention.
Titles With Overlapping Themes
Films and series that share thematic tags with Drive My Car. Number on each card indicates how many keywords overlap.
Other Titles From Bitters End
The 2020–2022 Japan Window
Drive My Car holds position #191 of 452 Japan films in the 2020–2022 window, below highlighted by audience rating.
The 2020s Japan Landscape
2021 was the decade’s peak output year for Japan — 170 titles released, including Drive My Car. Bars below show how the 2020s stacked up year by year (539 total).
Position in Catalog
Released alongside 169 other Japan films in 2021.
The 4318th Japan title from Japan we index (earliest catalogued entry: 1899).
Our Japan catalog contains 4,579 titles in total (2,908 films).
Thematic Fingerprint
Tags on Drive My Car, grouped by how common each theme is across the full Asian catalog. Rare tags are more distinctive signals.
- bilingual · 5
- driver · 4
- sign languages · 4
- audition · 2
- sensuality · 2
- slow cinema · 2
- loss of child · 2
- theater director · 1
- monologue · 1
- rehearsal · 1
- old car · 1
- artistic sex · 1
- road trip · 23
- infidelity · 22
- based on short story · 20
- hiroshima · 11
- theater play · 7
- grief · 7
- japan · 454
- japan · 454
- loss of loved one · 32
Reception Benchmarks
Ranked #1,340 of 4,579 Japan films indexed here (71st percentile by TMDB audience score).
Rating is +0.5 points above the Japan average of 6.9/10.
Among Japan Drama productions specifically: #583 of 1,933 (top 30%).
Production Details
| Primary Country | Japan |
|---|---|
| Original Language | Japanese |
| Spoken Languages | Mandarin, English, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Tagalog |
| Production Companies | Bitters End, C&I entertainment, Culture Entertainment, Agency for Cultural Affairs, J-LOD |
| Runtime | 3h 0m |
| Release Date | August 18, 2021 |
| IMDb | tt14039582 |
| Official Site | lineup.the-match-factory.digital |