‘Cloud' Review: Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Saga of Resale and Revenge

Wall Street Journal

17-07-2025

At the beginning of this century, in the era of AOL and the dot-com bubble, the Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa directed 'Pulse,' an early, eerie entry in the annals of internet-minded cinema. It was a ghost story in which the virtual world existed as a sort of porous spiritual dimension for lost souls, and it saw in the internet a false promise of connection that, anticipating the alienating effects of social media, proved prescient. Now, more than two decades later, Mr. Kurosawa has made a film for today's web-weary age with the thriller 'Cloud.'
The protagonist is Yoshii (Masaki Suda), who works at a factory while pursuing wealth on the side as an online reseller. We meet him inspecting a load of 'therapy devices,' potential stock for his web store, and giving the owner a lowball offer that is resignedly accepted. He loads them into his van, heads home, takes pictures of a device in his makeshift product-photography studio, and posts them for sale—more than two dozen at 200,000 yen (or about $1,300) each. They sell out in a matter of minutes. But it's the way he watches this that's telling: from a safe distance, sitting across the room from his monitor, not so much a computer user as an awed spectator, wary of something lashing out from the world within the screen.