Japanese Film Fest 2025 Review - Cloud
Images courtesy of Original Spin.
Aside from sharing a surname with legendary director Akira Kurosawa (despite there being no relation), Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a highly recognised name in the Japanese film industry. The filmmaker is known for horror-thrillers such as Pulse and Cure, and now returns with his latest feature, Cloud.
Ryosuke Yoshii (Masaki Suda) is a young and aimless factory worker living in Tokyo who resells goods online as a side hustle. This is where he channels all his ambition, manipulating and cheating buyers and sellers alike by heavily marking up prices. Whether it’s designer goods or collectible action figures, no product is off limits. Slowly earning more money, Ryosuke quits his job, moves out of the city with his girlfriend Akiko (Kotone Furukawa) and hires an assistant named Sano (Daiken Okudaira) to help him do his dirty work. After a series of mysterious and sinister events occur, Ryosuke begins to suspect that the people he previously wronged may be coming after him for revenge. With no computer to hide behind this time, it becomes a matter of life or death.
Cloud presents a number of intriguing themes with its premise and set up, such as greed, accountability and capitalism in our modern age. While the ideas are present, the events that are occurring on screen are unfortunately just not very interesting. It goes for the slow-burn approach, but leans too far into it and eliminates any tension or intrigue. The result comes off as dull and drawn out. Viewers, especially those familiar with Kurosawa’s previous work, will feel cheated when they discover that there are no real horror elements in the film, despite being marketed as a psychological horror. Exploring the subject matter through the lens of horror could have been highly effective and feels like a missed opportunity. What is most perplexing is when Cloud takes a total detour at its halfway mark. As Ryosuke is hunted by his enemies, it turns into an all-out action film consisting of shootouts and chase scenes. The change is jarring and makes the two halves feel like different movies. It’s also never easy when there are no characters to really root for, not even a little bit. While the film’s climax brings up some thought-provoking ideas around karma and bad deeds eventually catching up to you, it disposes of this with a sudden and unsatisfying conclusion.
It is clear that Cloud is a well-made film with effective cinematography and performances. It’s just a shame that the narrative isn’t stronger and more confident in what it is trying to do or say.
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Cloud is screening as part of the 2025 Japanese Film Festival, running in Melbourne from the 6th of November to the 4th of December. For tickets and more info, click here.