Yutaro Seki and Kentaro Hirase deliver an experience that, in our view, has everything to become a cult-phenomenon, so do not sleep on it.
Category: thriller
Fantasia International Film Fest: Japanese Films not to miss.
Find out our recommendations of this year’s Fantasia Film Festival.
Ando (2025) review [Nippon Connection 2026]
Arai might be the fresh blood that the thriller genre thirsts for in Japan. However, only time will tell.
Awake (2020) review
Atsuhiro Yamada ensures, by delivering an effective visual and musical frame, that his poignant psychological portrait result into a thrilling finale and, ultimately, a heartwarming conclusion.
A Strange House (2024) review
Uketsu, your work deserves better.
Kisaragi Station Re: (2025) review
This fun horror-thriller invites the spectator to consider the dynamic between the lurking presence and the visitors it constantly eyes as staging the uncomfortable truth of our contemporary societal field.
Dollhouse (2025) review
Yaguchi’s horror will please audiences new to the J-horror genre as well as long-time fans of the genre.
Bullet Train Explosion (2025) review
A competent sequel that will please audiences and invites spectators to explore Sato’s classic.
Lumberjack the Monster (2023) review
A great example of a filmic experience that is helmed by a director that is uninvested in the material and, consequently, merely does his bare minimum
Exit 8 (2025) review
Genki Kawamura delivers an engaging and visually arresting psychological horror narrative that takes the concept of liminality to its anthropological origin.
Cloud (2024) review
Kurosawa delivers a biting critique of way capitalism and consumerism has transformed our subjectivity and the way we interact with others.
Another Abashiri Prison Story (1965)
An enjoyable thriller – a straight-forward yakuza flick with many pleasant moments, but not the sequel the first narrative deserved.
Abashiri Prison (1965) review
Teruo Ishii delivers an interesting exploration of the frailty of the social bond between criminals as well as the trauma that, in some cases, animates the criminal reflex.
A Man (2022) review
A compelling and thrilling exploration of the reality of identity fraud and the damaging effect societal discourses can have on a subject and his ego.
Short Movie Time: Neu Mirrors (2024) review
Keishi Kondo offers the spectator an unsettling illustration of the Lacanian gaze.