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Earth is a 2007 British-German-American nature documentary from the BBC Natural History Unit. It was released in cinemas internationally in 2007 and in the United States on 22 April 2009, which is Earth Day.[2] The British version was narrated by Patrick Stewart and the American version is narrated by James Earl Jones. A British-German-American co-production, it was filmed entirely in high-definition and 35mm using the latest filming techniques. A companion piece to the 2006 BBC/Discovery/NHK series Planet Earth, the film uses many of the sequences from the television series, albeit in a re-edited form.

Earth depicts the diversity of wild habitats and creatures across the planet and cautions the threats to their future survival, starting in the Arctic in January of one year and moving south, finishing in the Antarctic in the December of the same year. It was co-directed by Alastair Fothergill, who also acted as executive producer of the television series, and Mark Linfield, also the producer of Planet Earth’s “From Pole to Pole” and “Seasonal Forests” episodes. The same production team had previously worked on Deep Blue, a documentary about life in the oceans released in 2003 and itself based on the television series The Blue Planet. They are currently working on a television sequel to Planet Earth called The Frozen Planet and a feature-length documentary (in conjunction with Disneynature) called Chimpanzee.

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The story concerns a Japanese businessman, husband, and father of two, who unexpectedly loses his job. Unable to break the news to his devoted wife, he dresses up every morning and pretends to go to work, instead wasting the days away with a former classmate who is also unemployed. Although they aren’t aware of his contradictory behavior, his family begins to disobey him nonetheless. His teenage son enlists in the Army in order to fight for the United States, while his adolescent son goes behind his back to take piano lessons. The longer his charade goes on, the less control he has as patriarch, creating an even deeper divide between him and his family. With TOKYO SONATA, Kurosawa has produced one of his most original and accomplished works. Equal parts social commentary and situational comedy, Kurosawa’s film also feels like a thriller, thanks to the exceptionally atmospheric work from cinematographer Akiko Ashizawa and composer Kazumasa Hashimoto.
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