REEL JAPAN

Score: 8/10

Adapted from a video game and directed by Kawamura Genki (A Hundred Flowers), who is best known as a producer on Koreeda Hirokazu’s masterpiece MONSTER (2023), EXIT 8 combines suspense and claustrophobia with a human interest story seamlessly.

Key to its success are the no-frills cinematography by Imamura Keisuke and the lead performance by expert everyman Ninomiya Kazunari. Ninomiya, known as “Nino,” burst onto the scene in the 1990s as a child actor and later pop artist. He has worked steadily ever since despite an appearance so nondescript, you could easily lose him in a crowd.  I first encountered his work as the lead in MY FAMILY (2022), playing the father of a kidnapped daughter and as the lead THE TIES OF SHOOTING STARS, in which he played the older brother to Toda Erika and Nishikido Ryo. He also co-starred in the Clint Eastwood film LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA. Ninomiya would make a fine Hamlet: he has a talent for portraying quiet angst and indecision, skills which he draws on heavily in EXIT 8, carrying the entire film on his shoulders. Yamato Kochi and child actor Asunuma Naru also contribute fine performances. 

I have not played the original video game, in which players must spot anomalies in a dreary landscape. The filmmakers wisely decided to keep the visuals subtle. Here the Tokyo subway showcases gleaming tiled corridors full of mystery and haunted by impending doom. These hallways can carry the protagonist to hell but also serve as a kind of re-birth canal, as I interpret it. Parenthood, responsibility, and freedom are the central themes of the story. A darker director’s cut release has been rumored. 

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