Cloud

Yoshii hates his factory job and makes his real money reselling online: buy cheap, sell dear, and never mind if the goods are fake medical devices. He turns down a promotion, goes full time, moves into a large house looking onto a lake and hires an assistant. Then his name starts circulating online. The people he cheated find each other, and one day they come to the house. The strangest thing about the film is that it turns into an action picture halfway through. The crowd arrives armed, and nobody knowing how to use a weapon makes those scenes uncanny rather than funny. What Kurosawa is interested in is not revenge but the fact that anger can now be assembled online, and that once assembled nobody can stop it. Kiyoshi Kurosawa wrote and directed. Masaki Suda plays Yoshii. It screened out of competition at the Venice Film Festival in 2024 and was Japan's submission for the 97th Academy Awards, though it did not make the international feature shortlist. North American rights went to Sideshow and Janus Films. Who it is for: anyone who likes Kurosawa's uncanny thrillers and stories built on the internet. Who it is not for: anyone who wants motive. Yoshii is never explained, most of the attackers stay nameless, and the ending is deliberately left hanging.