meta: Thriller

2019

'Cure': The Hollow(ed) Men April 26, 2019
Two decades on, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's mutant serial-killer thriller remains among his very best films, and one of Japan's finest from the 1990s generally
0 comments

2018

'Illang: The Wolf Brigade': Defanged November 19, 2018
Jee-woon Kim's live-action adaptation of Mamoru Oshii's 'Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade' is passable on its own, but doesn't come close to the primal shadow-play sorcery of the original
0 comments

Natsuo Kirino's 'Out': The Katori Corpse Disposal Service November 14, 2018
Natsuo Kirino's nervy thriller pits four working-class women against Japanese society -- not just its seedy underbelly, but its whole stacked deck of capital, class, and sex
0 comments

'Un-Go': The Truth Will Out September 3, 2018
These cyberpunk/SF mysteries drawn from the works of Ango Sakaguchi are intriguing for how they adapt a classic author, but grow far too gimmicky for their own good
0 comments

'The Man Who Stole The Sun': I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb. Now What? June 1, 2018
Almost forty years later, this jet-black comedy about a one-man nuclear terrorist ring remains an absurdist masterwork
0 comments

'Napping Princess': Slumberland Blues February 7, 2018
The one great idea to be found in Kenji Kamiyama's new film is stranded in a mishmash of a story that tries to do too many things and accomplishes almost none of them
0 comments

2017

'Funeral Parade Of Roses': Party Like It's 1969 November 24, 2017
More than forty years later, Toshio Matsumoto's psychedelic whirlpool of counterculture sexuality and continuity-shattering New Wave filmmaking remains a one-of-a-kind blast of cinematic fresh air
0 comments

Takeshi Kitano's 'Violent Cop': Contents Under Pressure October 11, 2017
'Beat' Takeshi Kitano's first outing as director remains among his best movies -- and also among his most nihilistic and unforgiving
0 comments

Victor Santos's 'Rashōmon': Edo Noir September 25, 2017
A clever and inventive retelling of three classic Japanese samurai-era tales, channeled through detective-noir sensibilities
0 comments

'Death Note' (2017): D.O.A. August 28, 2017
This isn't 'Death Note'; it's barely Cliffs Notes
0 comments

2016

'Ergo Proxy': I Think, Therefore You Are November 21, 2016
Few anime intended for mainstream consumption are this avowedly experimental; fewer still pull it off to the degree this one does
0 comments

2015

'Prophecy': Watching Big Brother Right Back August 18, 2015
On the face of it, a techno-thriller in the Michael Crichton vein; underneath that, a meditation on the way society is shamed into doing the right thing
0 comments

'Noir': Killing At Their Own Pace April 13, 2015
The deliberate pacing of this fantasy thriller is both its most important attribute -- and the one thing about it most likely to give pause to today's viewers
0 comments

'Utsubora': The Book Thief January 22, 2015
Somewhere between thriller, noir, mystery, erotica, and tragedy lies this absorbing, if convoluted, story of the thefts of both ideas and lives
0 comments

2014

'Paranoia Agent': We Have Met The Enemy And He Is Us October 3, 2014
The real monster in Satoshi Kon's genre-defying black comedy of horrors is human nature itself
0 comments