Latest news with #GenkiKawamura
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Business Mayor
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Mayor
'Exit 8' is an Exceptional Liminal Thriller and the Best Video Game Adaptation Ever Made [Cannes 2025 Review]
I've long been fascinated by what I call No Exit Horror , a term I've coined for a sub-genre rooted in existential dread, where characters are trapped in singular, oppressive spaces they cannot escape. Think of such liminal space thrillers as Cube , Dead End , Pontypool , or even The Shining . I took the name from French writer/philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, of course, and like his play No Exit , these films trap their characters not just in rooms but in loops of self-denial, regret, or moral indecision. Genki Kawamura's masterful Exit 8 , which just had its eerie and unforgettable premiere in the Cannes Midnight Screenings section, uses this trope so effectively that it might just be the most exceptional video game adaptation ever made. Adapted from a cult Japanese video game, Exit 8 follows 'The Lost Man,' played with raw and adorable restraint by Kazunari Ninomiya ( Letters from Iwo Jima , Gantz ). On a tedious underground commute home from his desk job, he quickly finds himself trapped in an endless underground subway corridor, forced to detect subtle anomalies, glitches in reality, that signal whether it's safe to proceed to the next exit, aka level. He loops back to the beginning if he misses something out of place. It's the perfect metaphor for the paralysis of modern professional life, trapped in the endless maze designed by the evils of capitalism: the hallway, sterile and endless, is less a location than a state of mind. He is, quite literally, going nowhere. And I'm sure most of us can find it relatable on some level . Exit 8 is more than just a stylish horror experiment or the astute staging of a unique and inexpensive IP. It's a tragic and intimate character study following a broken hero's journey where the monster isn't lurking around a corner. The Lost Man is on his way home from a job he clearly loathes. He's exhausted, emotionally disconnected, and stuck in the passive inertia of a life he never truly chose. And then, suddenly, fatherhood looms. Read More BioWare restructures around Mass Effect The great twist of Exit 8 is that its horror and drama are mostly emotional, not supernatural or sci-fi. Kawamura has crafted a film about the terror of becoming a parent before you're ready. About accepting love when you're not sure you're worthy. The anomaly in this man's life isn't a shadowy figure or an off-kilter passageway. Instead, it's the terrifying prospect of loving someone more than yourself. And being loved in return. The hallway becomes purgatory for a man who can't admit he's scared—scared of responsibility, commitment, and growing up. Ninomiya's performance is essential here. It's not flashy, but it's deep. He expertly plays emotional numbness, with shoulders sloped under decades of unspoken guilt and generational/gender expectation. There's a quiet beauty in how little he says and how much he shows. When change finally comes, it's not triumphant. It's terrifying. And it's earned. As The Lost Man repeats the corridor again and again, each loop becomes a step along a fractured, nonlinear path toward emotional accountability. He isn't trying to escape. He's trying to accept. He's trying to become someone capable of being loved, and of loving in return. And that might be the scariest journey a horror movie has ever asked of a man. And he's not alone. The eerie and quick introduction of 'The Walking Man' is frightening, then tragic. A perfect side quest during an already pristine mainline story. The atmosphere in Exit 8 draws on a similar liminal energy felt in brilliant liminal horror projects like P.T. and The Backrooms, but where those stories revel in abstract terror, Kawamura's film weaponises drama and character study with a teaspoon of hope. Ultimately, there isn't a clear resolution. But it does provide reflection. It asks what happens to those of us who live on autopilot. Those who accept careers we hate, relationships we don't nurture, and the futures we never chose. It's about how modern men inherit silence and mistake it for strength. And how love … real, scary, adult love … demands presence and vulnerability. It demands that you exit the loop. With Exit 8 , Genki Kawamura has crafted a haunting cautionary tale for the emotionally paralysed. It's a masterpiece of 'No Exit Horror': intimate, tragic, and impressively human. Forget boss battles, this is a video game adaptation where the final level is fatherhood, and like the process of being born, the only way out is through. Summary Genki Kawamura's masterful 'Exit 8' expertly draws on a liminal horror, character study, and realist drama to craft the best video game adaptation of all time. Tags: Cannes 2025 Exit 8 Featured Post Genki Kawamura Categorized:News Reviews
South China Morning Post
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Exit 8's director and star on turning the video game into a thrilling film
When Japanese video game company Kotake Create published The Exit 8 in 2023, it became an instant cult hit. Initially released on Steam, and later on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox Series X/S, Android and iOS, this walking simulator was an utter original. Players find themselves in a Japanese metro subway passageway stuck in an endless loop as they try to figure out clues on how to remove themselves from the hellish trap. It is hard to imagine how this might be adapted into a movie. But that did not stop director Genki Kawamura, whose adaptation of the game has just premiered in the Midnight Screenings strand at the Cannes Film Festival, ahead of a planned August Director Genki Kawamura attends the photocall for Exit 8 at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. Photo: EPA-EFE
South China Morning Post
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Cannes 2025: Exit 8 movie review – live-action adaptation of walking simulator video game
3/5 stars It's hardly every day that a novelist-turned-filmmaker will follow up an award-winning, genial family drama with a live-action adaptation of a video game. Appropriating images and ideas aplenty from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, Genki Kawamura has turned a simple premise – in which a player is made to run repeatedly down a short underground passage to search for a way out – into a psychological thriller exploring a man's guilt and redemption. For those who haven't played The Exit 8, which has attained cult status among gamers since its release in 2023, fear not: Kawamura did the uninitiated a huge favour by outlining its rules on screen from the get-go. Play Reading those instructions, displayed on a wall, out loud, 'The Lost Man' (Kazunari Ninomiya) learns that his goal is to look for anomalies in a white, brightly lit passageway featuring simple signage, a few advertising posters, stainless steel doors and an expressionless automaton ('The Walking Man', played by Yamato Kochi) who walks past the protagonist as if he isn't there. For most of the first half-hour of the film the protagonist – and the audience – try to make sense of the proceedings as he moves forwards and back through the hallway. The audience plays the same spot-the-difference game as the man while observing his increasingly agitated state, ably conveyed through Keisuke Imamura's fluid camerawork and Sekura Seya's editing.
France 24
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- France 24
Cannes 2025: From Console to Croisette, viral game ‘Exit 8' hits Cannes Midnight Screenings
Culture 06:25 From the show Japanese director Genki Kawamura brings the cult video game "Exit 8" to the big screen in a chilling psychological thriller. Premiering in Cannes' Midnight Screenings section, the film follows a man trapped in a looping subway corridor, desperately searching for a way out. Adapted from a 2023 indie hit, it's a tense, mind-bending ride already thrilling both gamers and film fans. Also making waves on the Croisette is "Alpha", the much-anticipated new film from Titane director Julia Ducournau. Set during a fictional epidemic inspired by the AIDS crisis, it's a bold, visceral story featuring Golshifteh Farahani and Tahar Rahim. And it's a historic moment for Nigerian cinema as "My Father's Shadow" by Akinola Davies Jr. becomes the first Nigerian feature ever selected at Cannes. Premiering in Un Certain Regard, it's being hailed as one of the festival's most emotionally powerful films. Culture Editor Eve Jackson is on the ground with all the highlights.
Japan Times
21-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Japan Times
'One Hundred Flowers': A moving exploration of loss, love and living with dementia
One New Year's Eve, novelist Genki Kawamura's grandmother seemed to think he was a child back in school. He was over 35 years old at the time. On a separate occasion, she forgot his name. Inspired by her battle with Alzheimer's disease, he went on to write 'One Hundred Flowers,' a thoughtful portrayal of a woman suffering from dementia that is both moving and authentic, drawing on his own experiences. One Hundred Flowers, by Genki Kawamura. Translated by Cathy Hirano. 288 pages. ITHACA PRESS, Fiction. Since the 2000s, Kawamura has had success as a film producer (he has worked with Japanese auteurs such as Hirokazu Kore-eda and Makoto Shinkai), director and novelist. His novel 'One Hundred Flowers' was originally published in 2019, and in 2022, he wrote and directed the film adaptation, for which he won the best director prize at the San Sebastian International Film Festival the same year. He is the first Japanese to receive the award. His first novel to be translated into English, 'If Cats Disappeared from the World,' was an international bestseller in 2019, translated into over 30 languages. 'One Hundred Flowers' is his second work available in English, translated by Cathy Hirano, published on March 13. The novel is not simply an intimate look at a mother struggling with memory loss and diminished awareness. By shifting between the dual perspectives of the mother and her adult son, the novel chiefly considers how memories — losing them or acknowledging them — inform our overall growth as humans. In its best moments, the reading experience is quietly profound. Sometimes, however, it feels like too many tangled threads that don't connect for a cleanly woven whole. The novel opens with Yuriko, the 67-year-old mother and piano teacher, who is caught up in a wave of confusing memories. Her son, the 37-year-old Izumi Kasai, arrives at her house, irritated that she is not home waiting. He eventually finds her alone on a swing in the local park where she has wandered off. It is New Year's Eve, as well as the day before her birthday, and it is one of the rare times during the year Izumi comes to visit. As Izumi lets the buried memory of his mother's past betrayal reach the surface, the traumatic reason behind their fraught relationship gradually becomes clear. There are also various subplots at play. Izumi works in the music industry, finding and managing young performers. His wife, Kaori, works for the same company, and she is generally acknowledged — by Izumi and others — to be the more successful of the pair. Kaori is also pregnant with their first child and will soon take maternity leave. This complicates Izumi's conflicting feelings for his mother and his thoughts of becoming a father when he never knew his own. He also struggles through a number of problems at work, from a runaway musician to a maverick employee under his supervision. Each strand of the narrative on its own feels authentic: The damaged relationship between a single mother and her adult son with a secret between them; the realities of an aging woman and artist fighting dementia; a young couple searching for shared understanding about becoming parents; the hectic, high-powered pop music industry with its constant tensions between commercialization and art. Although there's no satisfying, connective resolution, the narrative does provide plenty of moments for smaller contemplations, a believable slice-of-life window into human nature that resonates on multiple levels.
