Culture Representation: Taking place in Tokyo, the horror film “Exit 8” (based on the video game “The Exit 8”) features an all-Japanese cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Shortly after finding out that his girlfriend is pregnant, a man is trapped in a subway station, where some mysterious people also seem to be trapped.
Culture Audience: “Exit 8” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of “The Exit 8” video game and horror movies that take a while to reveal the story intentions.
Yamato Kôchi in “Exit 8” (Photo courtesy of Neon)
“Exit 8” is a faithful adaptation of the video game “The Exit 8,” but the movie requires patience and curiosity to see how it ends because the scenes can get repetitive. It’s an artistically made story about a man trapped in a subway station with some mysterious people. “Exit 8” is effectively creepy in all the right places. It’s a psychological horror film, not a gory slasher movie.
Directed by Genki Kawamura, “Exit 8” was co-written by Kawamura and Kentaro Hirase. The movie had its world premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. “Exit 8” is based on Kotake Create’s “The Exit 8” video game, which was released in 2023, with virtual-reality version released in 2024. “Exit 8” takes place in Tokyo, where the movie was filmed on location.
The characters in the “Exit 8” movie do not have names, so this review will refer to the characters by how these characters are listed in the movie’s end credits. “Exit 8” begins on a crowded subway, where a guy in his 20s, who’s listed in the end credits as the Lost Man (played by Kazunari Ninomiya), witnesses a man yelling at young mother because the baby she’s holding is crying loudly. While on the subway, the Lost Man gets a call from his girlfriend, who’s listed in the end credits as The Woman (played by Nana Komatsu), who tells the Lost Man that she’s pregnant.
The Lost Man seems to be surprised by this news, but he doesn’t say what he thinks his girlfriend should do about the pregnancy and doesn’t have an emotional response. Shortly after getting this news, the Lost Man exits the subway into the station and has an asthma attack. And then, things start to get very weird for him.
The Lost Man tries to find his way out of the station but all the doors are locked. After walking around the nearly deserted station, he notices that he’s just going around in circles and getting stuck in the same place. His phone has a signal, but he inexplicably can’t make outgoing calls.
The Lost Man notices a man in his 40s is walking in the station and seems to be lost too. This other traveler, who is listed in the end credits as the Walking Man (played by Yamato Kôchi) doesn’t speak, is holding a small briefcase, and seems to have robotic mannerisms. For example, the Walking Man often has a weird, frozen smile on his face. He also walks while staring straight ahead, as if he’s oblivious to anyone else who might be nearby.
The Lost Man becomes more panicked about the situation as time goes on, but he’s level-headed enough to figure out that he needs to find Exit 8 to leave. To keep track of where he’s going, he uses his phone to take photos of signs and walled poster advertisements that are in the subway station. The advertisements include services for a dentist, cosmetic surgery and a judicial business.
Other bizarre things happen during the Lost Man’s walking in a seemingly endless loop inside the subway station. He hears a baby crying inside a locker at the station. When he opens the locker, it’s empty, and the baby’s crying stops.
The Lost Man then gets a phone call from his girlfriend, who says she can’t decide what to do about the pregnancy. The Lost Man tells her that he’s stuck in a subway station but he assures her he’ll find an exit as soon as he can. Whatever the thinks about this pregnancy, he seems to want to wait to see her in person to discuss it.
After this phone conversation ends, the Lost Man notices that he’s at Exit 0. The subway station walls turn yellow and then turn white again, which he understands to mean that if this is a game, the game has “reset,” and he has to start all over again. Exit 8 keeps appearing, but the door remains locked.
Lost Man figures out that when he returns to walkways, there could be something different about the walkway that wasn’t there the previous time that he walked through, such as a poster that’s changed or a sign that looks different. When he says out loud what the anamoly is, he seems to be “rewarded” with getting one step closer to finding Exit 8.
After a certain period of time, the Lost Man notices that a boy, who appears to be about 5 or 6 years old, is following the Walking Man. This child is referred to as the Boy (played by Naru Asanuma) in the movie’s end credits. The Boy has a bloody red mark on the left side of his face, but it’s unknown how he got this mark. Just like the Lost Man, the Boy is being ignored by the Walking Man, who does not know the Boy and is not related to him.
The Lost Man encounters another strange person, who is listed in the end credits as the High School Girl (played by Kotone Hanase), a teenager wearing a school uniform. Just like the Lost Man, she is also trapped in the subway station without knowing anyone. She speaks, but in a way that sounds like a malfunctioning robot that has a glitch causing sentences to be repeated several times in a row.
The High School Girl is also walking in the subway station and trying to find the exit. She asks the Lost Man, “Are we dead? Are we in hell?” She then says to the Lost Man that going to work on a packed subway to do the same thing day after day—now, that sounds like hell.
The Boy seems desperate for adult guidance in leaving the subway station, and he eventually becomes the Lost Man’s walking companion in their quest to find Exit 8. The Lost Man welcomes this companionship and starts to feel protective toward the Boy. However, danger lurks in this subway station. The rest of the movie shows if anyone makes it out alive.
“Exit 8” effectively uses an eerie sound design and a haunting and suspenseful music score composed by Yasutaka Nakata and Shohei Amimori. Keisuke Imamura’s cinematography succeeds in creative the immersive atmosphere and the feeling of being trapped in an endless maze. nd has a few intense horror scenes, but most of “Exit 8” shows people walking around this maze-like subway station. Even with this repetition, “Exit 8” is well-paced and keeps viewers guessing about could be the meaning of this story.
The principal cast members perform sufficiently in “Exit 8,” with Ninomiya having to do most of the acting that involves a wide range of emotions. There’s nothing bad about the acting, but the acting isn’t award-worthy either. The main appeal in “Exit 8” is in unlocking the mystery of this perplexing subway station, which can be interpreted as a symbol of life’s uncertainties.
Neon will release “Exit 8” in select U.S. cinemas on April 10, 2026. The movie was released in Japan on August 29, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Japan, in 1281, the action film “Lone Samurai” features an all-Asian cast of characters portraying Japanese citizens and tribe of cannibals.
Culture Clash: A samurai, who is the sole survivor, gets stranded on an island inhabited by an all-male tribe of cannibals who want to kill him.
Culture Audience: “Lone Samurai” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of predictable samurai movies that are more style over substance.
Yayan Ruhian in “Lone Samurai” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA)
More tedious than it needed to be, “Lone Samurai” is an utterly predictable dud about a samurai stranded on an island with cannibals who want to kill him. The unrealistic fight scenes have adequate choreography, but the movie is idiotic. “Lone Samurai” is only 95 minutes long, but it seems like longer because there’s really not much to the shallow characters or the very thin plot, which drags with repetition.
Written and directed by Josh C. Waller, “Lone Samurai” takes place in 1281 in Japan, where the movie was filmed on location. Many of the characters do not have real names in the movie, so this review will identify the characters with how they are listed in the film’s end credits. The ship that crashes during a storm is filled with samurai sent by Kublai Khan (the first emperor of China’s Mongol-led Yuan dynasty) to invade Japan and massacre people. You won’t learn anything meaningful about these characters except finding out who lives and who dies.
“Lone Samurai” (which doesn’t have much dialogue) begins with the shipwreck that leaves a samurai named Riku (played by Shogen) as the sole survivor. He wakes up on the beach of an island and finds that a long wooden stake, presumably a beam from the ship, is embedded in his right leg. Riku manages to pull it out. In real life, this type of injury would get infected because it’s left untreated with no medicine. But magically, by the middle of the movie, Riku is fighting as if this injury never existed.
Riku is captured by an all-male cannibal tribe, which does occult rituals. The tribe has a tendency to wear full-face masks, and is led by an elderly chief (played by Yayu Unru), who doesn’t show up until near the end of the movie. The person in charge of most of the dirty work is a sadistic shaman type who is identified as Witch (played by Yayan Ruhian) in the end credits. Witch’s main sidekicks are named Boar (played by Rama Ramadhan Ruswadi) and Bone Thin (played by Faisal Rachman), who don’t have any personalities beyond grunting, growling and yelling.
There is no explanation for why there are only men in this tribe. The only woman seen in the movie is Riku’s wife Ahmya (played by Sumire Ashina), who appears in the occasional hallucinations that Shaman has during his ordeal. Ahmya doesn’t speak and is shown as a smiling, romantic figure who looks at Riku lovingly as she strolls through a wooded area.
Riku mentions having a family and says that he misses them. He hallucinates seeing two boys (approximately 6 to 9 years old) named Kitaro (played by Keigo Sunagawa) and Yoshi (played by Yuma Sunagawa), who are presumably Riku’s two sons. The movie never reveals who these boys are, but Riku seems to know them well. These fleeting glimpses are the very limited extent that the movie shows anything about Riku’s personal life.
Riku is held captive in a cave, where brutal cannibalism occurs with two other prisoners. One of the captives is middle-aged and bald (played by Deden Muhamad Yusup). The other captive is a young man named Putri (played by Fatih Unru). The movie tells absolutely nothing about these other two captives except that they are tortured by dismemberment before their final, inevitable fate. Somehow, Riku doesn’t get this type of torture.
“Lone Samurai” is the type of action flick where the “hero” is surrounded by at least 30 opponents, who don’t attack him all at once (which would happen in real life) but just stand around and wait their turn to do battle with him. It contradicts how vicious these cannibals are with other captives. Viewers are supposed to believe the cannibals pull their punches because there’s this message written in the beach’s sand: “Beware of the Samurai Pirates.”
In other words, there’s no suspense on how this awful movie is going to end. “Lone Samurai” refuses to reveal anything substantial about any of the characters. There is no reason given for why these cannibals exist and why there are no females who live among them. It’s a very long slog to the movie’s big showdown scenes, which are not that fun to watch because everything looks so phony and the characters have blank personalities.
Well Go USA released “Lone Samurai” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on December 12, 2025. The movie will be released on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD on March 17, 2026.
Culture Representation: Taking place from 1952 to 1953, primarily in New York City and in Japan (with some scenes in Paris, London, and Egypt), the comedy/drama “Marty Supreme” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: An American aspiring professional table-tennis player, who is about to become a first-time father, goes to extremes to travel to Japan, where he wants to win a table-tennis championship.
Culture Audience: “Marty Supreme” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Josh Safdie, suspenseful sports movies, and well-acted stories about obsessive ambition.
Pictured standing: Tyler Okonma (also known as Tyler, the Creator) and Timothée Chalamet in “Marty Supreme” (Photo courtesy of A24)
“Marty Supreme” is about an ambitious and arrogant table-tennis player, but the movie grabs viewers and never lets go, like a mixed-martial artist in a race against time. Timothée Chalamet gives a superb performance in this tension-filled comedy/drama. Don’t expect the movie to actually show a lot of table-tennis playing, although the scenes of people playing table tennis are have a certain amount of thrills. “Marty Supreme” isn’t about the technicalities of the sport or an in-depth look at the sport’s top players. This outstanding movie is more about desperation to be somebody “important,” while clawing and fighting against stagnant society conventions along the way.
Directed by Josh Safdie (who co-wrote the “Marty Supreme” screenplay and edited the movie with Ronald Bronstein), “Marty Supreme” had a surprise world premiere at the 2025 New York Film Festival. “Marty Supreme” is Safdie’s first movie since having a creative split from his previous filmmaker partner: his younger brother Benny Safdie. (Benny Safdie, who is also an actor and a film editor, went on to make the decidedly more low-key movie “The Smashing Machine,” a 2025 biopic starring Dwyane Johnson as mixed-martial artist champion Mark Kerr.)
Together, the Safdie brothers wrote and directed movies such as 2017’s “Good Time” (starring Robert Pattinson) and 2019’s “Uncut Gems” (starring Adam Sandler), which are the two movies that “Marty Supreme” will get compared to the most because all three movies feature a flawed central protagonist under extreme pressure to get something life-changing done in a time crunch. All three movies are loud, nerve-wracking, and set primarily in New York City. “Marty Supreme” (which was filmed on location in New York City) is the most creative and best-acted movie of the three, in addition to having wilder and more unexpected turns than “Good Time” and “Uncut Gems.”
“Marty Supreme” begins in 1952, with a seemingly ordinary scene inside a shoe store in New York City, where a restless 23-year-old named Marty Mauser (played by Chalamet) works as a sales clerk. Marty doesn’t like this job, but he needs the money because he’s saving for a trip to Japan, where he hopes to accomplish what he really wants to do with his life: become a world champion in table tennis. Table tennis (the formal competition term for pinng pong) is a sport that is mostly popular in Asia and Europe, but Marty wants to be the pioneer who makes table tennis extremely popular in the United States and in other countries around the world.
At the moment, Marty is stuck in a job, where the store owner/Marty’s boss happens to be Marty’s uncle Murray Norkin (played by Larry “Ratso” Sloman), who wants to mentor Marty to take over the business. Marty is a natural hustler and a very skilled salesman, but he has no interest doing any type of job except being a professional table tennis player. In the beginning of the movie, Murray has promoted Marty to store manager. It’s a promotion that Marty didn’t want or ask for, but it’s a promotion very much wanted by Marty’s jealous co-worker Lloyd (played by Ralph Colucci), who is very straight-laced and very much a follower of rules.
Marty lives with his single mother Rebecca Mauser (played by Fran Drescher), who is Murray’s sister. Rebecca has long since given up hope that Marty will lead a “normal” life. Her attitude toward Marty shows both resignation and frustration. Marty keeps a lot of secrets from Rebecca. And he mostly tries to avoid interacting with Rebecca unless he’s in trouble and/or needs money.
In one of the first scenes in the movie, Marty has a sexual tryst in a back storage/stock room of the shoe store with Rachel Mizler (played by Odessa A’zion), who’s about the same age as Marty and has known him since childhood. Rachel went into the store pretending that she accidentally left her old shoes there the day before when she supposedly bought new shoes. Marty offers to help her look for her old shoes in the back, where they have quickie sex among the storage shelves.
As time goes on, it becomes apparent that Rachel (who works in a pet store) has had a longtime crush on unattainable Marty, a “love ’em and leave ’em” type who doesn’t love anyone or anything more than himself and his passionate pursuit to be a world champion in table tennis. Rachel is unhappily married to a working-class guy named Ira Mizler (played by Emory Cohen), who seems to be aware of Rachel’s feelings for Marty, but they don’t discuss it. About four months after Marty and Rachel have their sexual encounter, Marty finds out that she’s pregnant. She tells Marty that he’s the father of the unborn child, while leading Ira to believe that Ira is the father of the child.
Marty becoming a father doesn’t stop his table-tennis goals. His biggest hope of going to Japan to compete in a world ping-pong championship is to be sponsored as the player representing the United States. The person he thinks is most likely to sponsor him is an affluent businessman named Christopher Galanis (played by John Catsimatidis), whose son 30-year-old Dion Galanis (played by Luke Manley) greatly admires Marty and speaks highly of Marty.
Dion is meek and seems to be on the autism spectrum. Marty takes advantage of Dion’s social awkwardness to manipulate Dion into setting up a meeting with Marty and Christopher, with Dion in attendance. Marty makes his big pitch to Christopher, who is unfamiliar with table tennis. “I’m in a unique position to be the face of the entire sport for the United States.” Marty pitches Christopher on sponsoring Marty like a stockbroker would pitch a potential client to invest in an “under the radar” stock that’s about to be the hottest stock on the market.
The pitch works. And with Marty getting a sponsorship deal (which covers his hotel, food, and competition costs), he’s now set to go to Japan, where Marty wants to defeat reigning ping-pong world champion Koto Endo (played by Koto Kawaguchi), who barely says anything in the movie. But there’s a major problem: Marty’s mother Rebecca, who was supposed to buy the plane ticket, used the money for something else because she didn’t believe Marty would actually be able to be in this competition. The rest of “Marty Supreme” is the beginning of even more problems that Marty faces and all the madcap misadventures and con games that he gets involved in along the way.
During the course of the story, Marty has a torrid and uneasy sexual affair with an unhappily married socialite named Kay Stone (played by Gwyneth Paltrow), who used to be a movie star in the 1930s, until she married a wealthy businessman named Milton Rockwell (played by Kevin O’Leary), the owner of the Rockwell pen manufacturing company. Kay, who is trapped in a marriage to a very controlling husband, comes out of retirement to do a stage play funded by Milton. Marty boldly pursues Kay after he sees that she and Milton are staying at the same hotel where he’s staying. Kay gives in to Marty’s sexual seduction out of curiosity, boredom and some genuine attraction.
For reasons that are shown in the movie, Marty spends a lot of time frantically trying to get money for a second trip to Japan. This leads to even more problems. And this time, Marty’s taxi driver friend Wally (played by Tyler Okonma, also known as Tyler, the Creator) and Rachel get involved. It’s an astonishing and treacherous journey that also involves a gangster named Ezra Mishkin (played by Abel Ferrara) and Ezra’s stolen dog: a German Shepherd named Moses.
In addition to being highly entertaining, “Marty Supreme” has excellent direction and screenwriting, as well as an unconventional soundtrack of 1980s music. (Alphaville’s “Forever Young” and Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” are two songs that are prominently featured in the movie.) “Marty Supreme’s” talented ensemble cast members play each of their roles with great aplomb. A’zion gives a breakout performance as Rachel, who has many layers to her personality that are eventually revealed in the story.
The heart and soul of the movie is the flawed but fascinating Marty, with Chalamet giving one of the best movie performances of the year. Chalamet is also one of the producers of “Marty Supreme,” a notable cinematic achievement that will leave viewers breathless by the sheer force of energy displayed in the movie. The table-tennis championship is symbolic of something bigger. “Marty Supreme” is a frenetic and unforgettable journey showing Marty’s dogged and relentless pursuit of two things that people want, whether they want to admit it or not: recognition and respect.
A24 will release “Marty Supreme” in select U.S. cinemas on December 19, 2025, with a wider expansion to U.S. cinemas on December 25, 2025. The movie will be relased on digital and VOD on February 10, 2026.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Japan, primarily in the city of Tokyo, the dramatic film “Rental Family” features a predominantly Japanese cast of characters (with a few white people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: An American bachelor, who is living in Tokyo, struggles to find work as an actor, until he becomes a reluctant employee of a small “rental family” company that offers services where employees pretend to clients’ family members or companions, for various reasons.
Culture Audience: “Rental Family” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and dramas about unexpected human connections.
Brendan Fraser and Akira Emoto in “Rental Family” (Photo by James Lisle/Searchlight Pictures)
Emotionally moving but utterly predictable, “Rental Family” is elevated by talented performances. This drama struggles with balancing two separate storylines, but the film has a lot to say about the importance of genuine human connections. Some viewers might be surprised to know that the rental family business depicted in the movie is legal and acceptable in Japan and some other countries.
Directed by Hikari (who co-wrote the “Rental Family” screenplay with Stephen Blahut), “Rental Family” had its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. The movie has since made the rounds at several other festivals in 2025, including the Tokyo International Film Festival, the BFI London Film Festival and AFI Fest. “Rental Family” takes place primarily in Tokyo, where the movie was filmed on location.
“Rental Family” begins by showing an American actor in his 50s named Phillip Vandarpleog (played by Brendan Fraser), a lonely and empathetic bachelor who lives in Tokyo, as he rushes to an audition. Phillip arrives at the audition with a lot of enthusiasm and hope, which is later deflated when he finds out that the job is not for a significant role but it’s to dress up as a tree as a background actor. Phillip (who is fluent in Japanese) moved to Tokyo seven years ago, when he became semi-famous for starring in a Japanese commercial for toothpaste. But lately, he’s had a hard time finding work as an actor.
It can be presumed that Phillip stayed in Tokyo because he likes living there. But throughout the movie, it becomes obvious that Phillip moved to Japan because he has completely cut himself off from the people he knew in the United States. Later in the movie, Phillip drops a hint that he is estranged from his biological family in America, when he tells someone that when his father died years ago, Phillip took a plane flight to go to his father’s funeral, but Phillip skipped the funeral and stayed at the airport instead.
Phillip also mentions later in the movie that his mother (who is now deceased) raised Phillip because Phillip’s father “wasn’t really around” to raise Phillip. In another scene, Phillip says that his mother was the only person in Phillip’s life who never judged Phillip. Don’t expect a complete explanation for why Phillip doesn’t keep in touch with people he knew in his previous life because the movie never explains why.
Phillip, who has no children, lives alone in a high-rise apartment, where he can see into the other apartments nearby if the residents leave their windows exposed. Phillip is not a voyeur, but he likes to observe how other people live. He sometimes looks wistfully at people who have families or partners, although Phillip doesn’t have a burning desire to live with anyone or start his own family. He seems to be someone who’s been a loner for a very long time and is accustomed to this lifestyle.
Phillip’s agent Sonia (voiced by Helen Sadler) is a Brit who communicates with him mainly by phone. One day, Sonia tells him about a role he can audition for, where the role is described as “sad American.” Sonia tells Phillip where to go for this audition. Phillip soon finds out that this isn’t a regular acting job.
Phillip finds out the true nature of this job when he goes to the funeral and discovers it’s not an audition but is actually an elaborately staged funeral. Someone named Yu-kun Daitoh (played by Shôhei Uno), the person in the coffin, has arranged to stage his own funeral so he can hear nice things that people would say about him if he actually died. Phillip, who is completely shocked.
At the end of the funeral, Phillip sees Mr. Daitoh and Mr. Daitoh’s parents (played by Sonoe Mizoguchi and Keiji Yamashita) thank the middle-aged man who played the role of funeral director for staging this fake funeral. The parents explain that Mr. Daitoh was depressed, and they arranged the funeral to make him feel appreciated. Mr. Daitoh says, “I finally feel like I deserve to exist.”
Phillip asks the “funeral director” what type of business he’s operating. The man gives him a business card, which shows that his name is Shinji Tada (played by Takehiro Hira), the owner of company called Rental Family. Shinji tells Phillip to call if he’s interested in finding out more about this work and possibly working for Rental Family for more acting assignments. Shinji says the job requires “specialized performances.”
Rental Family is a business whose clients rent actors and actresses to pretend to be whomever the client wants the hired person to be for non-sexual reasons. It’s not a prostitution business. Most of the clients want the hired people to pretend to be a family member, friend or romantic partner. Because sexual activity is not supposed to be involved in the transactions, this type of business is legal in Japan and in other countries.
Whether or not it’s an ethical business is open to debate. Throughout the story, Phillip has mixed feelings about the ethics of this business and how much he thinks he can cross the line from pretending to care to actually caring about the people whom he is hired to deceive. Out of curiosity, Phillip goes to the Rental Family office that hired him for the funeral job. That’s when Shinji tells Phillip more details about the Rental Family business.
During this office visit, Phillip overhears phone calls where potential customers are told how much it costs to rent the types of people they want to rent. For example, Shinji takes a phone call from a potential customer who wants to “rent” a teenage daughter. Shinji quotes a price of ¥18,000 for the first two hours of this rental.
Phillip is visibly uncomfortable at how people’s relationships are being fabricated and discussed as monetary transactions. He politely declines Shinji’s offer to get more work from Rental Family because Phillip says this type of work isn’t for him. However, there would be no “Rental Family” movie if Phillip didn’t change his mind.
Shinji appeals to Phillip’s ego and says, “I loved your toothpaste commercial.” Shinji also explains the business model of Rental Family: “We sell emotion. We play roles in the client’s life.” Phillip changes his mind, partly because he needs the money and partly because he’s curious about this new type of acting experience. He still has some doubts, but he decides he can always say no to a Rental Family assignment that he doesn’t want to do.
In addition to Shinji, the Rental Family company has two other full-time employees, who are both in their late 20s or early 30s: Aiko Nakajima (played by Mari Yamamoto) is cynical and a bit stand-offish. Kota Nakano (played by Bun Kimura) is friendly and approachable. Aiko has been tasked with training Phillip, but she seems wary and skeptical that Phillip will be good at this job.
Phillip’s next Rental Family acting assignment is to pretend to marry a woman in her 30s named Yoshie Ikeda (played by Misato Morita) because Yoshie’s conservative parents Hideo Ikeda (played by Daikichi Sugawara) and Keiko Ikeda (played by Hideko Hara) are pressuring Yoshie to get married. Phillip’s fake identity for this acting assignment is to be an affluent Canadian businessman named Brian Callahan, who is supposed to be Yoshie’s “fiancé.” Yoshie has told her parents that after the wedding, she and her “husband” will be moving permanently to Canada.
Phillip meets Yoshie only a day or two before the fake wedding. Yoshie privately explains to Phillip that her parents don’t care that they didn’t meet her “fiancé” sooner because her parents only care that she’s getting married to someone who can provide a comfortable financial lifestyle. Yoshie also says that her parents don’t mind that there’s a large age gap between Yoshie and “Brian,” or that Yoshie plans to move to a country that’s far away from Japan.
On the day of the fake wedding, which is being held at a hotel, Phillip gets so nervous and uneasy about the part he would play in this deception, he hides in a hotel bathroom. Aiko finds him and has to convince Phillip to go through with the assignment by telling Phillip that he will ruin Yoshie’s life if he doesn’t do this assignment. The fake wedding happens without any problems or complications. Yoshie’s parents seem to be very pleased with “Brian” and are very welcoming to him.
After the fake wedding, Yoshie reveals to Phillip the real reason why she wanted to pretend to get married to a man: Yoshie is in a secret relationship with a woman named Jun (played by Nanami Kawakami), who is the person whom Yoshie really wants to marry. Same-sex marriage is not legal in Japan, and Yoshie’s parents would disown her if they knew she’s queer or a lesbian, which is why Yoshie and Jun plan to move to Canada (where same-sex marriage is legal) and marry in Canada. Phillip sees how happy Yoshie and Jun are together, which convinces him he made the right decision to do this Rental Family assignment.
Phillip has his own personal experience with paying for companionship. He’s a regular client of a sex worker named Lola (played by Tamae Ando), whom he confides in about his mixed feelings about his Rental Family work. Lola tells him that just as she provides a specific type of companionship that helps people, Phillip can provide a different type of helpful companionship with his Rental Family work. It makes him feel even better about his decision to continue to get work from Rental Family.
The rest of the movie then shows how Phillip tries to juggle two assignments at the same time, as he gets very emotionally involved with the people whom he was hired to comfort. The movie does a fairly good job of portraying Phillip doing these simultaneous assignments. However, there are some flaws to this narrative because it doesn’t flow as well as it should.
First, Phillip is hired by a status-conscious single mother named Hitomi Kawasaki (played by Shino Shinozaki) to pretend to be the American father of Hitomi’s intelligent and artistic daughter Mia Kawasaki (played by Shannon Mahina Gorman, also known as Shannon Gorman), who’s about 7 or 8 years old, so that Mia can be enrolled in an elite private school that has a top-tier art program. Phillip’s fake identity for this Rental Family assignment is to be a computer engineer named Kevin, who is from Minnesota. The school requires in-person interviews with the parents of student applicants. Hitomi thinks Mia will have a much better chance of being accepted into the school if the school thinks that Hitomi is married to Mia’s father.
Mia has never met her biological father and has never been told who he is, but she has been told that her father abandoned Mia and Hitomi. As part of the charade, Hitomi introduces Mia to “Kevin” as Mia’s long-lost absentee father, who now wants to be a part of Mia’s life. Phillip has to lie and tell Mia that he’s sorry he spent time away from her. Phillip also tells Mia that he wants to make up for lost time by getting to know Mia. It’s part of Hitomi’s plan to make Mia familiar enough with “Kevin” so the three of them can look like a believable family.
Hitomi plans to hire Phillip for this assignment until she finds out whether or not Mia got accepted into the school. Mia has to be interviewed separately by school officials as part of the application process. Hitomi doesn’t think Mia would be able to convincingly lie about “Kevin” being her father, which is why Hitomi decided that Mia has to be told the lie that “Kevin” is her biological father. It’s implied that if anyone asks why “Kevin” was away for long periods of time, Hitomi plans to lie and say it’s because Kevin has to do a lot of work outside of Japan.
At the same time he’s masquerading as Mia’s biological father, Phillip has a separate Rental Family assignment that is less complicated, but he still gets emotionally attached to the person he’s deceiving. A middle-aged woman named Masami Hasegawa (played by Sei Matobu) hires Phillip to pretend to be an American journalist named John Conway from Vivid Frame magazine. Masami wants “John” to interview her elderly father Kikuo Hasegawa (played by Akira Emoto), who is a retired famous actor, for a “tribute article” that Vivid Frame is doing about Kikuo. Kikuo now has dementia. Masami has staged this tribute interview so that Kikuo can relive happy memories and feel better about himself.
It should come as no surprise that Mia is initially hostile to “Kevin,” but she eventually starts to warm up to him as they spend time together. Phillip starts to develop real “father figure” feelings for Mia, who makes him promise in front of Hitomi that he won’t leave them again. This promise will come back to haunt Phillip because he knows that this acting assignment is supposed to be temporary. As for Kikuo, Phillip also develops an emotional bond with him and takes a risk with Kikuo that won’t be revealed in this review, but this risk is something that can get Phillip into big trouble.
“Rental Family” has some charming performances and heartfelt moments throughout the film, thanks to the appealing acting of the movie’s principal cast members. The movie also shows the dark side of the Rental Family business. For example, Aiko is frequently hired by adulterous husbands who want to introduce her as their mistress to their suspicious wives, who then lash out at Aiko when she makes an apology to the wives and promises that the affair is over. In reality, the husbands are just using Aiko as a decoy so the husbands can keep their real mistresses as secrets. Shinji’s personal life is also shown to be affected by what he does as the owner of Rental Family.
“Rental Family” will make viewers think about how much a business like Rental Family can really help or hurt people by setting up these false relationships and staged scenarios. However, this movie about faking identities has a little bit of phoniness of its own. In this day and age of Internet searches and social media, it seems a little hard to believe that many of these charades aren’t easily discovered to be scams.
“Rental Family” doesn’t convincingly explain why some of the Rental Family jobs are not detected as frauds by people who can do Internet searches. This lack of detail doesn’t ruin “Rental Family,” but there’s a glossy sheen to the story that telegraphs how the movie ultimately ends. Where “Rental Family” shines the most is in Phillip’s meaningful interactions and with how people discover things about themselves when they experience the pros and cons of a Rental Family job.
Searchlight Pictures will release “Rental Family” in U.S. cinemas on November 21, 2025.
Available in the original Japanese version (with English subtitles) or in a dubbed English-language version.
Culture Representation: The Japanese animated film “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc,” which takes place in Tokyo, tells the story of teenage boy (who transforms into a devilish human superhero with chainsaws as body appendages) and his various battles against demons and other villains.
Culture Clash: Denji (also known as Chainsaw Man) falls hard for a recent girlfriend, who is not all she appears to be.
Culture Audience: “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the anime series and manga series on which the movie is based, as well as anime films about complicated superheroes.
Denji in “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” (Photo courtesy of MAPPA/Crunchyroll/Sony Pictures Releasing)
“Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” is a thrilling continuation of the superhero “Chainsaw Man” anime series. The movie has spectacular action sequences, good comedic touches and heartfelt drama. However, people unfamiliar with the series might feel lost. The 2020 “Chainsaw Man” anime series (which had 12 episodes) was based on the “Chainsaw Man” manga series written by Tatsuki Fujimoto
Directed by Tatsuya Yoshihara and written by Hiroshi Seko, “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” takes place in Tokyo. The “Chainsaw Man” world is an alternate sci-fi/fantasy world where the main antagonists are devils that can take the form of other living beings. The devils have names like Chainsaw Devil, Gun Devil, Bat Devil, Zombie Devil, Ghost Devil, Typhoon Devil, Hell Devil, Justice Devil, Chicken Devil, Fire Devil, Eternity Devil, Darkness Devil, Aging Devil and Falling Devil. Chainsaw Devil is the most fearsome devil, who appeared in the form of a dog named Pochita, owned by teenage boy named Denji. When Denji was nearly killed by yakuza gangsters because of unpaid debt that Denji inherited from Denji’s deceased parents, Denji merged with Pochita/Chainsaw Devil to become Chainsaw Man.
Denji/Chainsaw Man is a member of the Public Safety Organization, a large government agency in Japan that has Public Safety Devil Hunters to protect Japan. The Public Safety Organization has special divisions, with Tokyo Special Division 4 being an “experimental division.” Denji has had a crush on Makima, the leader of the Public Safety Organization. Makima flirts with Denji, but she and Denji have not officially become boyfriend and girlfriend.
Also in this world are Fiends, who are Devils that have possessed human corpses as a way for dying Devils to survive. An ally of Denji is Power, a Public Safety Organization member who started off as a self-absorbed Blood Fiend and has since become kinder and generous to her friends. Power is Denji’s most consistent partners when they battle Devils. Aki Hayakawa is a Tokyo Special Divison 4 member who has been a frenemy to Denji. Aki has a vendetta agains Gun Devil for killing Aki’s family.
“Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” tells a story that combines whas was in the fifth and sixth volumes of the “Chainsaw Man” manga series but was not covered in the “Chainsaw Man” TV series. In the beginning of the movie, Makima assigns a new partner to Denji/Chainsaw Man because Power is temporarily away to get her blood changed. Denji’s new partner is Beam, a Shark Fiend, who is hyperactive, loyal and has the energy of a curious puppy.
Makima and Denji go to a movie marathon as on a platonic date. While watching an emotionally touching scene in a movie about a couple saying goodbye to each other, Makima and Denji both start to cry at this scene. After the movie, Denji asks Makima if she thinks he still has a heart, even though he is no longer fully human. Makima rests her head on Denji’s chest and says yes.
Denji’s complicated feelings about Makima get stirred up again, but soon he will meet a new love interest. During a rainstorm, he seeks shelter in a phone booth on a street. A teenager named Reze, who’s about the same age as Denji is nearby. He spontaneously gives her a small daisy as a gift. Reze is flattered by this gift and introduces herself and invites Denji to visit her anytime at the cafe where she works.
Within minutes, Denji is at the cafe. He is immediately smitten by Reze, who seems to be very attracted to him too. They hang out some more and go on romantic dates together. That’s about all that can be described about “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” without giving away too much information about the plot. People who know what’s in the entire “Chainsaw Man” manga series will already know what happens between Denji and Reze, but that information won’t be revealed in this movie review.
The voices of the “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” characters are portrayed by different actors, depending on the version of “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc.” The original Japanese version (with English subtitles) has Kikunosuke Toya as Denji, Reina Ueda as Reze, Fairouz Ai as Power, Tomori Kusunoki as Makima, and Shogo Sakata as Aki, Shiori Izawa as Pochita, and Natsuki Hanae as Beam. There’s also a U.S. version, with the dialogue dubbed in English, that has Ryan Colt Levy as Denji, Alexis Tipton as Reze, Sarah Wiedenheft as Power, Suzie Yeung as Makima, Reagan Murdock as Aki, Lindsay Seidel as Pochita, and Derick Snow as Beam.
“Chainsaw Man” has a way of blending Denji’s teenage angst with the bravado of his Chainsaw Man persona, which is why the “Chainsaw Man” franchise is very popular. Denji has some quirks that might be a little off-putting to some viewers (for example, he’s fixated on asking women he’s attracted to if he can consensually fondle their breasts), but there are no sex scenes in this movie, which is suitable for anyone who can tolerate seeing violent action scenes. The end-credits scene (which is interesting but not essential) is an example of how the movie mixes comedy with drama. The action scenes are the best parts of “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc,” which is an immersive and entertaining experience for viewers who already know the backstories of the main characters.
Sony Pictures Releasing released “Chainsaw Man” in select cinemas on October 24, 2025. The movie was released in Japan on September 19, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Japan, the action film “Ghost Killer” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A female college student becomes possessed by the ghost of a murdered assassin, who gives her fighting powers, and she becomes a vigilante who gets in revenge battles against bullies and the people responsible for the assassin’s murder.
Culture Audience: “Ghost Killer” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and wacky action movies that have supernatural themes.
Akari Takaishi in “Ghost Killer” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA)
“Ghost Killer” is an offbeat action film about a female college student possessed by the ghost of a vengeful assassin who was murdered. The movie’s story gets very one-note, but it’s mostly entertaining for anyone looking for unconventional ghost stories. The violence is expectedly over-the-top, but many of the stunts are well-choreographed.
Directed by Kensuke Sonomura and written by Yugo Sakamoto, “Ghost Killer” had its world premiere at the 2024 edition of Fantastic Fest. The movie takes place in an unnamed city in Japan. The story in “Ghost Killer” takes place over the course of a few days.
“Ghost Killer” begins by showing an assassin Hideo Kudo, who goes by the name Kudo (played by Masanori Mimoto), getting murdered in a dark warehouse-type building. He is shot to death, and his body is dragged away by a man, while two other men clean up the bloody mess. The bullet cartridge containing the bullet that killed Kudo rolls outside and onto the street.
A college student named Fumika Matsuoka (played by Akari Takaishi), who works part-time as a waitress in a bar, finds the bullet cartridge on the street when she falls down on a sidewalk. As soon as she pucks up the bullet cartridge, the spirit of Kudo enters her body, but she doesn’t know it at first. Kudo can also leave her body and show himself to Fumika, who is the only person who can see Kudo’s ghost.
Fumika’s best friend Maho Iida (played by Ayaka Higashino) asks to stay at Kudo’s place to get away from Maho’s horrible boyfriend Ryusuke (played by Ryu Ichinose), who physically and emotionally abuses Maho. At first, when Fumika says she can see a ghost, Maho think that Fumika is on drugs. Maho eventually believes her friend.
One day, Fumika sees Maho being abused by Ryusuke in an alley where there are no other witnesses. Fumika tries to intervene, but Ryusuke tells her to mind her own business and tries to gaslight Maho into thinking that she didn’t witness any abuse. Kudo tells Fumika that she needs to do something about this abuse.
It’s enough to say that Fumika finds out that Kudo’s fight skills can be transferred to her when the ghost holds her hand. Kudo’s movements can also be synchronized with Fumika’s movements. Fumika just wants Kudo out of her life.
Fumika tries to exorcise Kudo with salt, but that method doesn’t work. And that’s when Kudo tells her that he was an assassin, and the only way Kudo can be exorcized is if Fumika finds and kills the people who are responsible for murdering Kudo. Kudo further explains that the spent bullet cartridge that Fumika picked up was the conduit for his grudge.
The rest of “Ghost Killer” is somewhat of a “race against time” for Fumika to carry out Kudo’s wishes so she can get him out of her life. She has stereotypical frightened squealing and emotional meltdowns. But eventually, Fumika accepts that she has no other way to get out of her predicament but to do what Kudo says she needs to do.
Fumika comes across several men who become her fight opponents in this strange odyssey. The three who stand out the most are Riku Kagehara (played by Mario Kuroba) is a ruthless former colleague of Kudo’s. Masaki Katayama (played by Hidenobu Abera) is an event promoter who was a former social media influencer. Narumi (played by Naoto Kuratomi) is a current social media influencer.
There’s not much else to the plot of “Ghost Killer,” which is low on surprises but high on adrenaline-pumping action and some dark comedy. The entertaining rapport between Fumika and Kudo is the movie’s best asset. “Ghost KIller” has some ridiculousness, such as a fight scene in a bar where the bar’s employees are suddenly nowhere to be found as the fighting gets more violent. However, “Ghost Killer” doesn’t take itself too seriously—and neither should anyone who watches it.
Well Go USA released “Ghost Killer” on digital on July 22, 2025. The movie will be released on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD on September 23, 2025. “Ghost Killer” was released in Japan on April 11, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Japan and in the United States, the horror film “Bloat” features a white and Asian group of people representing the working-class and the middle-class.
Culture Clash: A U.S. Army official, whose wife and two sons are temporarily living in Japan while he is on duty in the U.S., finds out that his younger son has been infected during a drowning accident and appears to be possessed by a demon.
Culture Audience: “Bloat” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and who don’t mind watching boring and idiotic horror movies.
Kane Kosugi in “Bloat” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)
Much of the insipid horror movie “Bloat” consists of people looking at computer screens and being confused. That’s because this awful movie (about a father trying to give online help for his demon-possessed 10-year-old son) is a terrible and boring mess. The editing is sloppy, the plot is often nonsensical, and “Bloat” isn’t even that scary. And the ending of the film is absolutely horrible because it leaves a big question unanswered.
Written and directed by Pablo Absento, “Bloat” is his feature-film debut. Horror movies that rely heavily on scenes were people are just looking at screens that are on computers and phones have to maintain a certain level of suspense and tension. “Bloat” completely fails in this regard. The movie is often unfocused and has a contradictory timeline with too many plot holes.
“Bloat” begins by showing home video footage of U.S. Army official Jack Reynolds (played by Ben McKenzie, one of the producers of “Bloat”) and his wife Hannah Reynolds (played by Bojana Novakovic) in a hospital delivery room as she gives birth to their third child: a daughter named Ava. (Jack’s military title is never revealed in the movie, but conversations imply he’s a mid-level official.) Ava (who looks red and bloated when she is born) is suddenly taken away by alarmed medical professionals in the room. Hannah shouts with fear when she asks why they are taking Ava away.
The movie then abruptly cuts to text messages that are being sent between Jack and Hannah. The messages reveal that Ava died at the hospital. The cause of death is never revealed in the movie. It’s also never made clear how long ago Ava died, but Jack and Hannah are understandably grieving.
Hannah texts this message: “Jack, we lost a child, she’s gone. Let’s make sure we don’t lose what we still have.” It’s soon revealed that Jack and Hannah have two other children: Their son Steve (played by Malcolm Fuller) is about 12 or 13 years old. Their son Kyle (played by Sawyer Jones) is 10 years old.
To help with their grief, Jack and Hannah decide to take a family vacation trip with their sons to Japan. They book an Airbnb house in Tokyo to stay at during the family’s visit to Japan. However, right before they are supposed to go on the trip, U.S. military bases and facilities are attacked in Iraq and Syria. Jack is ordered to stay in the United States. Jack tells Hannah that she, Steve and Kyle should still go ahead with the trip to Japan.
“Bloat” is so poorly written, it has contradicting information on what year that Kyle became possessed. In one part of the movie, it says he became possessed in 2018. In another part of the movie, which is supposed to take place abut four to eight weeks later, the year is shown as 2020.
After Hannah, Steve and Kyle arrive in Japan, Hannah sends videos and does live video calls with Jack so he can see their activities. On a family outing at a lake, a tragedy occurs: Four boys who were on a school trip drowned in the lake. Kyle had also been swimming in the lake at the time and almost drowned, but he survived because a Japanese friend of the Reynolds family—a nurse name Iriko—happened to be there too and saved Kyle from drowning.
Iriko is never seen or heard from in the movie. It’s a weird loose end that is never explained, considering all the medical problems that Kyle experiences in Japan when he is far away from home. Why mention a “family friend” nurse character who saved Kyle from drowning, and then never bring the character into the movie? What kind of “nurse friend” never checks in with the family of the child she saved from drowning? It’s an example of the sloppy screenwriting in “Bloat.”
An alarmed Jack sees news video footage of Kyle being pulled from the lake. Kyle has strange green bile coming out of his mouth. Visitors’ cell phones aren’t allowed in the hospital where Kyle is getting medical treatment, so it takes a while before Jack can find out what’s going on from Steve and Hannah. Eventually, Kyle is discharged from the hospital and stays with Hannah and Steve at the rented Airbnb house in Tokyo.
Through video calls and text messages from Steve, Jack finds out that Kyle just hasn’t been the same since Kyle’s near-death experience. Kyle has become moody, withdrawn and occasionally violent. Kyle barely talks and has become almost mute. He also has a vacant look in his eyes and doesn’t seem to connect with people who try to talk to him.
There’s a disturbing incident that Jack sees in a video call. Steve and Kyle are fighting over a small frog that Kyle wants to keep with him. Kyle has a temper-tantrum meltdown where he repeatedly shouts, “Get away from my frog!”
Kyle then bites Steve hard enough on Steve’s right arm to break the skin and leave a noticeable injury. When Jack plays back the video and does a freeze-frame right after Kyle has bitten Steve, Jack sees that Kyle’s eyes appear to be demonic and glowing. Jack wants to think it’s a technical glitch, but over time, he begins to wonder if Kyle is possessed.
Kyle is put into therapy with Dr. Shinji Ishikawa (played by Motoki Kobayashi), an English-speaking therapist based in Tokyo. Dr. Ishikawa, who treats children and adults, has diagnosed Kyle with having post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The doctor advises Jack that it will takes some time before progress can be made in Kyle’s recovery.
However, Jack becomes impatient. And he starts to believe Steve’s theory that Kyle could be possessed by an unknown entity. Steve has been using a “baby cam” to secretly record Kyle in his bedroom and finds out that Kyle has been hoarding and eating dead insects and rotten cucumbers that Kyle hides underneath his bed.
Steve shows Jack this disturbing footage, which is enough for Jack to be even more convinced that something else is going on with Kyle that is not PTSD. Jack goes on the Dark Web and finds a support group called Parents of Possessed Kids. The only way to join the group is if access is approved, so there’s a period of time where Jack has to wait for access.
Hannah is in complete denial about how serious Kyle’s problems are. Steve also tells Jack that Hannah is starting to drink more alcohol and might be taking pills again. Conversations between Steve and Jack imply that Hannah was in recovery for an addiction problem but she has now relapsed. As time goes on, Jack grows concerned that Hannah seems to be drunk every time he calls.
Hannah, Steve and Kyle are supposed to be on vacation, but the movie acts like they’re expected to stay in Japan during Kyle’s recovery, which is for an extended and undetermined period of time. “Bloat” doesn’t have any realistic discussions about visa issues for an extended stay or why Kyle isn’t getting treatment in the United States. After all, if Hannah, Steve and Kyle went back to the United States to live with Jack, there would be no need for the movie’s botched gimmick of Jack only able to see his family through video chats.
“Bloat” goes off on several tangents that are clumsily handled. Jack has an Army buddy named Ryan Aoki (played by Kane Kosugi), who accepts Jack’s request for Ryan to go to Tokyo to check on Hannah, Steve and Kyle. A screenshot in the movie shows that Ryan goes to visit the Reynolds family in Tokyo in September 2020. And yet, earlier in the movie, it shows that Kyle’s near-drowning accident happened on February 18, 2018. But based on the way the timeline is explained in the movie, the Reynolds family has been in Japan for only four to eight weeks (at the most) by the time Ryan goes to visit.
Jack’s family problems cause distractions for him at work, where he shows up late for meetings, so his commanding officer gets increasingly frustrated and angry with Jack. The movie’s explanation for Jack not going to Japan, even though he has a family emergency, is because he has been strictly ordered to stay at his military base in the United States and could be charged with going AWOL (absent without leave) if he leaves without permission. Because of the contradictory timeline, the movie does a horrible job of explaining how long Jack has been away from his family.
Jack and Ryan do some research that involves an unnamed Japanese monk (played by Hiroshi Watanabe) and a past news report about an American father named Derrick (played by Royce Johnson) whose son Gary went through a situation that was similar to what Kyle is experiencing. There’s some nonsense in the movie about an ancient water-dwelling demon named Kappa. Steve wants to play detective too, so he does things like secretly follow and film Kyle into a wooded area where Kyle sneaks off to at night.
The acting performances in “Bloat” are nothing special and are often very tedious. Most of the movie’s characters have flat and underdeveloped personalities. The not-surprising-at-all reveal of a demon monster is underwhelming. It leads to an inevitable part of the movie where an exorcism of Kyle is planned.
The last 10 minutes of the film bring an abrupt and slipshod turn to the story. “Bloat” could have been a much better movie if it had a clever screenplay, skilled direction, and engaging performances. Ironically, this movie about a fateful drowning accident purposely drowns itself in mishandled and dull filmmaking.
Lionsgate released “Bloat” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and on VOD on March 7, 2025.
Culture Representation: The documentary film “AUM: The Cult at the End of the World” features a predominantly Japanese group of people (with some white people) talking about the Aum Shinrikyo cult, based in Japan and led by Shoko Asahara.
Culture Clash:Aum Shinrikyo started in 1983 as a yoga/meditation group, but by 1995, several members of the cult were convicted of murdering others for cult-motivated reasons.
Culture Audience: “AUM: The Cult at the End of the World” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in finding out more about a sinister cult that might not be well-known outside of Japan.
Shoko Asahara (fourth from left) in “AUM: The Cult at the End of the World” (Photo courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment)
“AUM: The Cult at the End of the World” is an expected cautionary tale about a group that started out as harmless and turned into a dangerous and deadly cult. This grim and somewhat tedious documentary adequately tells the disturbing story about the Aum Shinriko cult but doesn’t give much new information. It would be a better documentary with tighter editing and more original investigations from the filmmakers.
Directed by Ben Braun and Chiaki Yanagimoto, “AUM: The Cult at the End of the World” is their feature-film directorial debut. “AUM: The Cult at the End of the World” had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. The documentary sticks to a standard formula of mixing archival footage with interviews that were done exclusively for the documentary. “AUM: The Cult at the End of the World” is at least partially based on the 1996 non-fiction book “The Cult at the End of the World,” written by David E. Kaplan and Andrew Marshall, who are both interviewed in the documentary.
The Aum Shinriko cult was launched in Japan in 1983, by a self-proclaimed guru named Shoko Asahara, whose birth name was Chizuo Matsumoto. The group’s purpose was originally yoga and meditation. The group began calling itself Aum Shinriko in 1987. Aum Shinriko attracted mostly young people and lived in communes. The group eventually bought land in a remote town near Mount Fuji called Kamikuishiki in 1989, when Aum Shinriko had about 3,000 followers.
As far as cults go, Aum Shinriko checked a lot of boxes because this was yet another cult that isolated its members in a remote area, where the members were supposed to live in a commune-like setting. Asahara encouraged members to have a lack of sleep, lack of food, and lack of personal hygiene. Over time, Asahara began to make wild claims about himself and the cult, such as saying that joining the cult would give people superpowers.
“The Cult at the End of the World” co-author Marshall is a London-born journalist who lived in Japan and was a deputy editor at Tokyo Journal in the late 1980s. In the documentary, Marshall describes the cult’s living quarters as looking like a cross between “factories and prison camps.” And although the cult was in a rural area, the cult members were disruptive enough to be considered “bad neighbors” because the cult members would chant loudly during all hours of the day and night. The cult also would leave a lot of garbage strewn around.
In other words, Aum Shinriko was a cult that did not keep a low profile. Aum Shinriko also had books and graphic novels to promote the cult. Cult leader Asahara sought out publicity and often gave media interviews. Asahara called himself a messiah and the reincarnation of Buddha. He was also preaching doomsday prophecies and had bold political ambitions for himself and his cult.
A turning point for Aum Shinriko was in 1990, when the cult formed its own political group. Asahara and 24 other members of the cult were political candidates for Japan’s House of Representatives, but these cult members lost in all of these elections. This humiliating defeat apparently set Asahara over the edge. Instead of wanting to join the Japanese government, the group changed its agenda to wanting to destroy the Japanese government.
By 1991, after Russia switched from a Communist regime to a democratic-resembling government, members of Aum Shinriko went to Russia to recruit new members. Aum Shinriko also began to amass weapons and illegally purchased nerve gas called Sarin. What started out as a seemingly benign lifestyle community had turned into a full-fledged terrorist group.
“AUM: The Cult at the End of the World” begins with Aum Shinriko’s most notorious crime: On March 20, 1995, Aum Shinriko instigated a Sarin attack on five subway cars on a subway train going to Kasumigaseki Station in Tokyo. The attack murdered 13 people and injured thousands.
Asahara was arrested on May 16, 1995. By October of 1995, Aum Shinriko disbanded. Asahara and several Aum Shinriko members were eventually convicted of murder. Asahara was sentenced to death in 2004. He and other convicted Aum Shinriko murderers were executed in 2018. All of this information is dutifully chronicled in the documentary.
“AUM: The Cult at the End of the World” also takes a closer look beyond the 1995 nerve gas attack and examines the human toll taken on people who went up against the cult. People tried to get loved ones out of the cult but did not get much help from authorities because the people in the cult were considered adults who were there of their own free will. Journalists, lawyers and other people who were investigating the cult found themselves on the receiving end of harassment or worse from cult members.
Although it’s impossible to know how many murders are linked to Aum Shinriko, the documentary mentions three particular murders that are definitely linked to Aum Shinriko. A Yokohama-based attorney named Tsutsumi Sakamoto represented family members who wanted their loved ones to leave the cult. Sakamoto was investigating the cult when he, his wife and their son disappeared in 1989. An Aum Shinriko badge was found in the family’s apartment. Their murdered bodies were found in 1995, after an Aum Shinriko member provided authorities with a map to find the bodies.
“AUM: The Cult at the End of the World” has an interview with a former member named Mika Hosokawa, who joined the cult in 1988, when she was 22 years old. At this time in her life, she describes herself as “spiritually stalled” and looking for a change in her life. Married couple Hiroyuki Nagaoka and Eiko Nagaoka say in documentary interviews that they spent a fortune trying to get their unnamed son out of the cult. They describe their son as being lured into Aum Shinriko by the cult’s book “How to Develop Psychic Powers.”
One of the most compelling interviews intthe documentary is with Fumihiro Joyu, who was a high-ranking member of the Aum Shinriko cult. Joyu spent time in prison for his Aum Shinriko crimes and was released in 1999. He currently leads a group called Hikari no Wa, which is Japanese for Circle of Light.
Joyu says that his father abandoned him as a child. And when Joyu was in the cult, he says that Asahara became a “real father” to Joyu, who joined the cult in 1986. At the time, the cult was still presenting itself as a yoga/meditation school. Joyu majored in artificial intelligence in college. He was interested in yoga and spiritual enlightenment. And he says that in Japan, there was an “occult boom” at the time.
According to Joyu, the hierarchy in the Aum Shinriko cult was that cult members who were scientists, chemists and engineers were on the second-highest level of the hierarchy and were treated like priests. It explains why this cult used chemical warfare for its heinous subway attack in 1995. At the time Joyu joined the group, he worked at JAYA, which is a Japanese outer-space agency that is similar to NASA.
Joyu doesn’t seem particularly remorseful about all the destruction caused by Aum Shinriko. He tells his story matter-of-factly. And he clearly has fond memories of his time in the cult. The documentary could have done a better job of asking Joyu about his thoughts about the people who were harmed by the cult, or at least asked him what he thinks about cult warning signs that people need to know about to avoid a cult such as Aum Shinriko.
The documentary’s most heart-wrenching interview is with Yoshiyuki Kono, who was falsely accused in the Japanese media of being the perpetrator of the Mastumoto subway attack in 1995. During this ordeal, his wife went into a coma for 14 years after having a heart attack. Even after experiencing all this trauma, Kono says, “I’ve come to realize that even in the toughest of circumstances, you can look for joy in life.”
Other people interviewed in “AUM: The Cult at the End of the World” are journalist Shoko Egawa; attorneys Yuji Nakamura and Taro Takmoto; and Seiich Takeuchi, a Kamikuishiki villager who took photos of the cult members. Takeuchi gives his opinion on why the Aum Shinriko had a reign of terror for so many years: “I think the [government] administration and the police are responsible for it. So many red flags, and they barely investigated them.”
“AUM: The Cult at the End of the World” does what a lot of documentaries do when they are satisfactory but not outstanding: They rely heavily on reports that journalists have already done and sometimes interview those journalists. This documentary is obviously very well-researched. But more insight probably would’ve been in this movie if the people interviewed for the documentary were asked more probing questions beyond the basics.
Greenwich Entertainment released “AUM: The Cult at the End of the World” in select U.S. cinemas on March 19, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on March 28, 2025.
Available in the original Japanese version (with English subtitles) or in a dubbed English-language version.
Culture Representation: The Japanese animated film “The Colors Within,” which takes place in an unnamed city in Japan, tells the story of three very different teenagers who form a rock band together.
Culture Clash: All of the teenagers have different reasons for hiding their band activities.
Culture Audience: “The Colors Within” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in anime films about the subtleties human relationships.
Kimi Sakunaga in “The Colors Within” (Image courtesy of GKIDS)
“The Colors Within” is a lovely and low-key anime drama about three teenagers who become friends when they form a rock band together. Each band member has different reasons for keeping the band a secret. “The Colors Within” might bore some people who are expecting this anime film to have more action. It’s a movie that’s geared more to viewers who want to see a story about this friendship evolves between the three teenagers.
Directed by Naoko Yamada and written by Reiko Yoshida, “The Colors Within” takes place in an unnamed city in Japan. The three teenagers don’t know each other very well when they decide to form a band, but they share a passion for music. The music they want to perform is pop-rock.
The three teenagers at the center of the story are all in their late teens. They are:
Totsuko Higurashi, a religious student at an all-girls Catholic boarding school, where the students are not allowed to hang out with boys.
Kimi Sakunaga, a dropout from the same school, who now works as a sales clerk in a used bookstore.
Rui Kagehira, a student in his last year of high school, who is expected to become a medical doctor like other members of his family.
Totsuko, Kimi and Rui all meet at the bookstore and almost instantly decide to form a band. Totsuko (who is obedient and friendly) has the ability to read people’s colors or auras. It’s something that she doesn’t reveal to a lot of people because she doesn’t want to be perceived as weird.
Kimi (who is creative and slightly rebellious) dropped out of school because she was caught having a boyfriend. Kimi is being raised by her grandmother Shino Sakunaga, and Kimi is afraid to tell to tell Shino that she dropped out of school. Meanwhile, Rui (who is shy and nerdy) doesn’t want his parents to know about his interest in being a musician.
The three teens name their group the White Cat Hall Band, named after a campus library called White Cat Hall. Kimi is the lead singer/guitarist. Totsuko is the keyboardist. Rui plays the theremin.
One of the nuns at the school is Sister Hiyoshiko, who is younger and more liberal than some of the school’s other nuns. Totsuko confides in Sister Hiyoshiko that Totsuko is writing a song. Sister Hiyoshiko says this songwriting activity should be okay if the song she’s writing is morally righteous.
The voices of the “The Colors Within” characters are portrayed by different actors, depending on the version of “The Colors Within.” The original Japanese version (with English subtitles) has Sayu Suzukawa as Totsuko Higurashi, Akari Takaishi as Kimi Sakunaga, Taisei Kido as Rui Kagehira, Keiko Toda as Shino Sakunaga, and Yui Aragaki as Sister Hiyoshiko. There’s also a U.S. version, with the dialogue dubbed in English, that has Libby Rue as Totsuko Higurashi, Kylie McNeill as Kimi Sakunaga, Eddy Lee as Rui Kagehira, Lani Minella as Shino Sakunaga, and Eileen Stevens as Sister Hiyoshiko.
“The Colors Within” has a pleasant message about seeing and appreciating people for who they really are and not how others want them to be. The voice performances are adequate, and the movie takes a little too long to show the band members’ full musical talent. However, “The Colors Within” is a solid option for people who want to watch an anime film about friendships that begin and grow under unlikely circumstances.
GKIDS released “The Colors Within” in select U.S. cinemas on January 24, 2025. The movie was released in Japan on August 30, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Japan from 2017 to 2019, the documentary film “Black Box Diaries” (based partially on the 2017 non-fiction book “Black Box”) features an all-Japanese group of people representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy who are connected in some way to the rape case of political journalist Shiori Itō.
Culture Clash: Itō, who accused a fellow journalist of raping her in 2015 while she was too intoxicated to consent, faced many obstacles in getting justice, including her accused rapist having a close alliance with Shinzo Abe, who was Japan’s prime minister at the time.
Culture Audience: “Black Box Diaries” will appeal mainly to people who are interested in highly personal documentaries about getting justice for crimes.
Shiori Itō in “Black Box Diaries” (Photo courtesy of MTV Documentary Films)
“Black Box Diaries” is director Shiori Itō’s courageous and harrowing chronicle of getting justice for her rape case. The documentary is a blistering takedown of a very flawed legal system that Itō battled in her case, against seemingly insurmountable odds. It’s also a story of how rape survivors are further harmed by victim blaming from people who don’t know all the facts and are quick to assume that rape survivors are usually lying. “Black Box Diaries” had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival (where “Black Box Diaries” won the Human Rights Award) and also screened at the 2024 editions of the SXSW Film & TV Festival and CPH:DOX.
Itō (who was born in 1989) is a Tokyo-based political journalist who says she was raped by TV journalist Noriyuki Yamaguchi (who was born in 1966) at the Sheraton Hotel in Tokyo’s Ebisu part of the Shibuya ward, on April 4, 2015. At the time, Itō was a Thomson Reuters intern, and Yamaguchi was Tokyo Broadcast System’s Washington bureau chief. Itō says she was too intoxicated to give consent. Yamaguchi denies the accusations and say that he and Itō had consensual sex that night.
“Black Box Diaries” has hotel security video from that night that gives more credence to Itō’s side of the story. Itō and Yamaguchi are shown emerging from a taxi outside the hotel in the hotel’s front driveway. Yamaguchi is forcefully pulling Itō out of the back of the taxi, while a male hotel employee stands by and looks unsure of what to do. (This hotel employee, who is not named in the movie, later makes an impactful statement to Itō that brings her to tears.)
The video shows that Itō can barely walk and has to be almost propped up by Yamaguchi. Security video from inside the hotel shows Yamaguchi walking Itō trhough the lobby and to an elevator. According to court testimony, Itō says that Yamaguchi took her to his hotel room and raped her while she drifted in and out of consciousness and was too physically weak to fight back. Itō says she didn’t remember much of the encounter until hours later. She suspects that she had been drugged without her consent and gained back her memory after the effects of any alleged drugs wore off.
Itō reported the crime to the Tokyo Police Department, which discouraged her from filing charges because they told Itō that her case would be hard to prove. “Black Box Diaries” includes secret recordings that she made during her interview with an uncaring police investigator who is only identified in the documentary as Investigator A. This callous investigator says a lot of things that aren’t supposed to be said by a responsible and professional investigator of rape/sexual assault, such as suggesting that Itō might be partially responsible for this reported crime because she was intoxicated when it happened. It’s typical victim blaming.
Itō did not have a choice in pursuing justice in a criminal court because Tokyo Police Department decided to close the investigation. Instead, Itō held a press conference to speak out against this injustice. Footage from the press conference footage is included in “Black Box Diaries.”
In the press conference, Itō says she’s using her work as a journalist to protect herself against those who will accuse her of lying. When asked why she’s giving a press conference to talk about this rape accusation, she says the typical expectation of a rape victim is for the victim to be sad and hide from embarrassment. “I had a problem with this norm,” Itō says in the press conference. “I have nothing to hide. If I don’t speak now, the law will not change. That’s why I’m coming forward.
In 2017, Itō wrote a non-fiction book called “Black Box” and to document the ongoing investigation of her rape case as she pursued legal action against Yamaguchi by filing a civil lawsuit against him. Itō also became an activist to change Japan’s outdated rape laws, whch stated at the time that Japan’s legal definition of rape had to include assault and intimidation. The title of the book is based on how a prosecutor stonewalled Itō about her case by making this comment: “Because it’s a black box, we don’t really know what’s happening.” Itō says of this comment: “It tells everything about our justice system and how it’s not working.”
“Black Box Diaries” (which was filmed from 2017 to 2019) is an extension of the “Black Box” book, by having entries from the book (often as handwritten captions on the screen), as well as a lot of behind-the-scenes and personal footage of Itō quest for justice. She also has to deal with bullying and hate from many different people (usually online and in the media), who shame her because they don’t believe she’s telling the truth. Itō keeps her dignity throughout, but there are times when she understandably reaches her emotional breaking point when things look particularly bleak, and there are obstacles in her way. A low point happens when Itō ends up in a hospital for a reason that is revealed in the documentary.
Itō believes that the Tokyo Police Department discontinued the investigation into her rape because Yamaguchi had a close alliance with Shinzo Abe, who was Japan’s prime minister at the time. Abe was a close associate of Itaru Nakamura, who was the acting chief of Tokyo Police Department at the time. Yamaguchi wrote a flattering biography of the politically conservative Abe, and this book was published two weeks before the prosecutors dropped the rape case against him Yamaguchi for “insufficient evidence.” In addition to often getting privileged media access to Abe, Yamaguchi had other high-ranking political connections that Itō believes shielded Yamaguchi from being arrested and prosecuted in criminal court for this case.
Itō couldn’t help but feel paranoid when she found out that she was being spied on and followed by unnamed people. The documentary shows how she temporarily moved out of her apartment because of this stalking. She has some close friends who are her support system. These friends are shown in the documentary but are not identified by name.
Itō admits that her family members (who are not in the documentary) were upset when they found out that she wrote the “Black Box” book, which Itō’s book publisher warns her could be blocked by Yamaguchi from being published if real names are used in the book. Itō admits that by writing this book, “I know I’m putting them [my family] in danger.” Itō also got backlash from strangers who accused her of trying to cash in on her accusations by writing the “Black Box” book.
“Black Box Diaries” has an intimate and deliberate tone that might be too slow and too quiet for people who expect true crime documentaries to be slick and fast-paced. There are no crusading attorneys or tabloid media spectacles in this documentary. It’s a vividly candid look at one woman’s emotionally painful journey to seek justice, which involves a lot of suffering—but it’s suffering that is not done in silence, and it’s suffering that can lead to the greater good for any other rape survivors who also seek justice.
MTV Documentary Films released “Black Box Diaries” in New York City on October 25, 2024, with an expansion to more U.S. cities on November 1, 2024.
