‘Cloud’ REVIEW: In the Name of Capital, I Will Destroy You
‘Cloud’ REVIEW: In the Name of Capital, I Will Destroy You
A masked figure looks in through a cloudy glass pane / Still from MUBI
Minor spoilers for Cloud ahead.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the godfather of J-horror, has long been drawn to the subtle terrors and anxieties that lurk within the everyday, tracing their presence even in the smallest, most unassuming corners of our existence.
In Séance, he finds it in the stormy currents of spousal relationships and the quiet aches of unfulfilled potential. In Cure, he sees it in the fragile barriers that hold humanity’s violent urges at bay, crumbling under the weight of suggestion. In Pulse, he sees it in the deepening isolation and social disconnection that took root in the early days of the internet. Even in the anxiously hopeful To the Ends of the Earth, he captures a glimpse of mundane horrors that pervade everyday life, in this instance manifesting itself in the experience of being lost in an unfamiliar place.
Cloud, in this regard, is no different, with Kurosawa this time seeing the horror in the commerce of the digital space and internet anonymity — or rather, the lack of it. In the film, we follow Ryosuke Yoshii (Masaki Suda), a man who inhabits a morally dubious space as a blue-collar worker turned internet scalper. Operating under the alias "Ratel", he exploits desperate sellers by snatching up their goods at dirt-cheap prices only to resell them with an outrageously high markup.
His greed and cunning brings handsome profits, but also earning him enmity from his faceless victims. What begins as a collection of petty crimes soon spirals into a desperate cat-and-mouse chase, plunging Yoshii into a deadly nightmare of paranoia and retribution.
But to assess Cloud solely on its merits as a thrilling exposé of the horrors of the online marketplace would be a disservice — reductive, even — to what is accomplished here. As Kurosawa has proven time and time again, his brilliance lies in his refusal to stay confined within a single genre. And here, he creates a genre-bender, deftly blending elements of paranoia thriller, psychological horror, shoot ‘em up, and a surprising touch of dark comedy, creating something wholly unique in an era where genre films have become increasingly predictable.
Masaki Suda as Ryosuke Yoshii / Still from MUBI
In the first half, Kurosawa does what he does best: terrifying the shit out of us through auditory and visual illusions. We see a filmmaker in full command of his craft, using his horror sensibilities to build dread around Yoshii as he begins to notice the strange events unfolding around him. Kurosawa evokes menace and toys with our expectations through precise blocking, directing attention on empty spaces where danger might lurk, and skillfully weaponizing sound — or its absence — to unsettle.
One of the film's most haunting examples of this comes from a single stationary shot. A solitary house sits by the edge of a serene lake. Dead trees surround it and towering mountains loom over it in the background, their presence accentuated by the overcast sky. As the camera lingers, clouds drift slowly across the landscape, casting an ominous shadow over the house and its surroundings.
There are no shrieking violin strings, no disembodied voices of a ghostly choir, not even a single eerie piano note. Only the stillness of the lake, the whisper of the wind, and the ambient sounds of nature can be heard. Yet Kurosawa manages to conjure a palpable sense of impending doom through this simple shot. This mundane image of a house by the lake, dwarfed by its surroundings and engulfed in shadows, becomes a harbinger of unease.
A masked figure roams the forest / Still from MUBI
Another unsettling moment seared into my brain finds Yoshii riding a bus with his girlfriend, Akiko (Kotona Furukawa). They speak of leaving Tokyo, dreaming of a fresh start in the mountainsides and expanding their reselling business, unaware of a shadowy man eavesdropping on their plans. The camera imperceptibly shifts its gaze towards the man just out of focus behind them.
Then, as Yoshii senses the presence of this stalker, all sound vanishes into an oppressive silence, one that is so absolute that it felt like the world stood still. The lens abandons Yoshii and Akiko, drawn instead to the mysterious stranger rising from his seat, waiting to disembark after being noticed. It's a simple scene, and yet so effective in subtly underscoring how the perils closing in on Yoshii are already dangerously close.
Kurosawa collects these moments, letting the suspense billow up like clouds in the sky, heavy with the resentments toward Yoshii. And when the tension finally breaks, it erupts into a shower of violence, ushering us into the second half of the film — a segment difficult to discuss without risking major spoilers. All I can say is: this is Kiyoshi unleashed. It might seem as though he’s throwing ideas at a wall, hoping something sticks, but the truth is everything lands, everything holds. Beneath the chaos, you can still sense the discipline and the steady hand guiding it all.
What ensues in this section of the film is something out of a Takeshi Kitano black comedy, particularly his film Outrage, which follows scheming yakuza bosses ang thugs butchering each other in cartoonishly brutal ways over petty insults, self-interest, and a warped sense of “honor”. A yakuza slasher, if you will. Cloud is just as meaninglessly and nihilistically cruel, with Kurosawa inviting us to revel in the chaos and sadism as much as he does — and I won’t lie, I did enjoy myself. It’s hard not to partake in the indulgence when the sequences are bathed in apathetic, dry humor and designed like a tactical stealth action video game that delivers an oddly satisfying slice of schadenfreude from the resulting carnage.
Yoshii prepares to defend himself / Official poster
But above all, for Kurosawa, it seems he’s letting loose for another reason: catharsis. Cloud is more than just another genre exercise from the famed horror filmmaker or a shallow condemnation of internet scalpers. It’s his vent of frustration at a predatory system consumed with the concept of demand, supply, and profit — one that reduces people into mindless consumers and regards everything, even humans, as mere commodities.
To him, it’s a poison that seeps into the micro-economies of people, breeding inhumanity in all of us and earning us a one-way ticket to our destruction. You might argue that he’s being excessive, but then again, two of the world’s most notorious grifters have recently been elevated to positions of power in an infamously capitalist country, one that has long been preoccupied with meddling in international conflicts (if they are not starting one) and trampling on the sovereignty of weaker nations — all in the name of “protecting” its property and interests.
It’s the end of history, as envisioned by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, unfolding in the most senselessly violent, callous, and darkly hilarious way imaginable. And if the film’s ending is to be interpreted as such, it’s him tracing the obsession with capital to its logical endpoint: straight into the pits of Hell.
‘Cloud’ was the closing film of the 12th edition of the QCinema International Film Festival. There is no news yet of a Philippine wide release.
