Cloud

Iconic director Kiyoshi Kurosawa satirically skewers our complacent belief in the anonymity of the internet in this unnerving, vicious psychological thriller.

Yoshii is a bored, responsibility-averse twentysomething who channels all his ambitions into a side hustle as an online reseller. Flipping everything from medical supplies to action figures to knock-off handbags, he overhypes and underdelivers, peddling junk with exorbitant mark-ups. As his online business booms, Yoshii moves from Tokyo to a lavish rural house with his girlfriend and a newly hired assistant. But as his dissatisfied customers grow from a disgruntled few to an angry mob, Yoshii becomes increasingly paranoid, fearing violent IRL retribution.

Kurosawa (Journey to the Shore, MIFF 2015) is one of Japan’s great genre filmmakers, having cut his teeth working on no-budget straight-to-video action and pinku movies in the 1980s before breaking out on the global stage with 2001’s J-horror classic Pulse, a fable of early-internet doom that has proven prescient. In Cloud, he turns his attention to the shady world of modern ecommerce, crafting ever-escalating tension from an online dystopia in which everyone’s out to make a quick buck and nobody wants to be left holding the bag.

“An action-packed fable on the dangers of getting too greedy … [Mixes] action and thriller tropes with a satire about the dangers of online retailing, and perhaps capitalism in general.” – The Hollywood Reporter