(Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2024, 123 min, Japan, Japanese with English subtitles, DCP)
A stylish, subversive thriller from suspense-maverick Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure, Pulse), concerning Yoshii, an ambitious, yet directionless, young factory worker from Tokyo who side hustles in the murky realm of black market reselling, cheating buyers and sellers alike. After swindling his way into loads of cash, he becomes slowly disconnected to humanity, moving out of the city, shunning his girlfriend, and hiring a devoted assistant. But after a series of mysterious, sinister incidents occur, he begins to suspect his former victims could be plotting the ultimate revenge. A master of carefully simmering tension to a bloody crescendo, Kurosawa delivers a searing portrait of digital greed and vengeance.
"Kurosawa’s latest film is a chilly and mystifying expression of a modern malevolence which hangs over our lives — like a cloud, if you will — worsened by constant digital connection." — Empire Magazine
"Kurosawa inches back toward the knotted-stomach dread of his horror classics Cure and Pulse with Cloud, albeit accented this time with a healthily morbid sense of humour. And, perhaps more surprising, a serious affinity for action movie shoot-outs." — Globe and Mail
"That tension between modes [of realism and online fantasy] gives Cloud tremendous visceral and intellectual force, plus a persistent air of moral inquiry." — Justin Chang, The New Yorker
Cinematic Arts at Duke (Screen/Society); Cinematic Arts at Duke (Screen/Society); Cinematic Arts at Duke (Screen/Society)
Asian Pacific Studies Institute (APSI); Asian Pacific Studies Institute (APSI); Asian Pacific Studies Institute (APSI); Asian Pacific Studies Institute (APSI); Asian Pacific Studies Institute (APSI); Asian Pacific Studies Institute (APSI)
