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This review may contain spoilers
this one pries you open.
⚠️ this review contains spoilers, albeit sometimes vaguely worded, in terms of plot and character dynamics. read at your own risk. originally posted in August of 2025. ⚠️
"of course... i'm sure that the truth, no matter what it is, isn't that frightening. what is most frightening is not knowing it."
i've been trying to watch this since 2022. parse that for a sec so you understand how everything came to a head to align and finally decide for me that now was the time
what clued me in to how much of an absolutely insane masterpiece of a film this one would be was not the cinematography (that opening silhouette. gorgeous. we begin and end where the world does) or the slightly unsettling dialogue Japanese media seems to have as its hallmark (see the entire conversation during the first eight minutes. cannot watch this with my mother under any circumstances that's for sure sksksksk). it was the moment i saw the rope snap on stage and i sat straight up in my chair bc hello. brief featuring of a multilingual production of Waiting for Godot eventually segueing into a production of Uncle Vanya is a hell of a way to tell me what the theme of this shit is don't you think. (seeing Okada Masaki enter the frame shortly after re:WFG [when my most recent reference of him is the creep in the Bad Kids remake] didn't exactly hurt now did it. DID however make me suspect his ass yet again which. well. trust your gut folks that's all i'll say on the matter)
anything that Nishijima Hidetoshi has ever been in ever needs to be watched and embedded in my brain now. i need to make it an event. lock the fuck in the amount of dramas and specials he's been in that were on my PTW but i kept getting distracted so i never got around to them (including the gay older couple j-drama that i recognized him for in the first place)? no longer. nope i refuse to allow it where the fuck have you been hiding him and why aren't there serious consequences for letting people walk around not knowing who he is. the absolute fuck. if Japan ever did a remake of My Mister and they asked for casting recs i'd put his name up for Park Dong Hoon immediately. immediately you're not getting it (i swear he laughed at one point in this film and i got so scared it sounded just like LSK. fuck). that scene with him and Okada in the car driving back from the jazz bar like it's a fucking confessional booth................. head in my hands. head in my fucking handsssssss the layers. the implications. the goddamn security camera. i could watch six more hours of those two just looking at each other and saying nothing. AND i'd give those six hours even more Oscars. God. their dynamic is insaneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. pls do not get me started about Miura Toko or we will get in this car and start driving for an entire day without sleep to go to the place that does not exist anymore. iykyk
"Chekhov is terrifying. when you say his lines, it drags out the real you. don't you feel it? i can't bear that anymore."
if more multilingual (& multi-abled! shout out to Park Yoo Rim i love her and i'm so glad this was her film debut and not Ballerina. Jin Dae Yeon ily too may you forever be employed) productions of deliciously thought-provoking plays were done you would have to pry my ass out of the theatre hand to God. i would be broke as FUCK from all of the seasonal passes just heading in and out of that place like a revolving door. ain't getting no work done no assignments turned in barely eating sleeping living in the walls chewing on the electrical cords (gently. i know how hard the stage technicians have to work already) y'all about to be sick of me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
tl;dr: this film said what if you most likely needed to go very badly to therapy but you didn't want to do that so instead the therapist's office became the back seat of your red Saab 900. and every day you drive to work and your dead wife speaks to you and somehow it's the infection and the lancing both. what if that happened and you had to accept that and keep on living. 10/10 i haven't even scratched the surface in this review i'm just blabbering about shit. they're driving through tunnels and over bridges and down the long long roads and i have Sting's Fortress Around Your Heart + The Lazarus Heart + Why Should I Cry For You? playing on loop in my head like a broken record. (fitting since Japan is obsessed with the man and he's supposed to be on tour there for most of September. yes i'm showing my music taste again shhhhhhh) i will never be over this. watch it NOW
"of course... i'm sure that the truth, no matter what it is, isn't that frightening. what is most frightening is not knowing it."
i've been trying to watch this since 2022. parse that for a sec so you understand how everything came to a head to align and finally decide for me that now was the time
what clued me in to how much of an absolutely insane masterpiece of a film this one would be was not the cinematography (that opening silhouette. gorgeous. we begin and end where the world does) or the slightly unsettling dialogue Japanese media seems to have as its hallmark (see the entire conversation during the first eight minutes. cannot watch this with my mother under any circumstances that's for sure sksksksk). it was the moment i saw the rope snap on stage and i sat straight up in my chair bc hello. brief featuring of a multilingual production of Waiting for Godot eventually segueing into a production of Uncle Vanya is a hell of a way to tell me what the theme of this shit is don't you think. (seeing Okada Masaki enter the frame shortly after re:WFG [when my most recent reference of him is the creep in the Bad Kids remake] didn't exactly hurt now did it. DID however make me suspect his ass yet again which. well. trust your gut folks that's all i'll say on the matter)
anything that Nishijima Hidetoshi has ever been in ever needs to be watched and embedded in my brain now. i need to make it an event. lock the fuck in the amount of dramas and specials he's been in that were on my PTW but i kept getting distracted so i never got around to them (including the gay older couple j-drama that i recognized him for in the first place)? no longer. nope i refuse to allow it where the fuck have you been hiding him and why aren't there serious consequences for letting people walk around not knowing who he is. the absolute fuck. if Japan ever did a remake of My Mister and they asked for casting recs i'd put his name up for Park Dong Hoon immediately. immediately you're not getting it (i swear he laughed at one point in this film and i got so scared it sounded just like LSK. fuck). that scene with him and Okada in the car driving back from the jazz bar like it's a fucking confessional booth................. head in my hands. head in my fucking handsssssss the layers. the implications. the goddamn security camera. i could watch six more hours of those two just looking at each other and saying nothing. AND i'd give those six hours even more Oscars. God. their dynamic is insaneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. pls do not get me started about Miura Toko or we will get in this car and start driving for an entire day without sleep to go to the place that does not exist anymore. iykyk
"Chekhov is terrifying. when you say his lines, it drags out the real you. don't you feel it? i can't bear that anymore."
if more multilingual (& multi-abled! shout out to Park Yoo Rim i love her and i'm so glad this was her film debut and not Ballerina. Jin Dae Yeon ily too may you forever be employed) productions of deliciously thought-provoking plays were done you would have to pry my ass out of the theatre hand to God. i would be broke as FUCK from all of the seasonal passes just heading in and out of that place like a revolving door. ain't getting no work done no assignments turned in barely eating sleeping living in the walls chewing on the electrical cords (gently. i know how hard the stage technicians have to work already) y'all about to be sick of me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
tl;dr: this film said what if you most likely needed to go very badly to therapy but you didn't want to do that so instead the therapist's office became the back seat of your red Saab 900. and every day you drive to work and your dead wife speaks to you and somehow it's the infection and the lancing both. what if that happened and you had to accept that and keep on living. 10/10 i haven't even scratched the surface in this review i'm just blabbering about shit. they're driving through tunnels and over bridges and down the long long roads and i have Sting's Fortress Around Your Heart + The Lazarus Heart + Why Should I Cry For You? playing on loop in my head like a broken record. (fitting since Japan is obsessed with the man and he's supposed to be on tour there for most of September. yes i'm showing my music taste again shhhhhhh) i will never be over this. watch it NOW
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