• 8番出口 (Exit 8)

7/8/26 (Wed)

A young man on a subway, listening blankly on his earphones to the incessantly repetitive “Bolero”, sees a guy lashing out at a woman whose baby is crying but does nothing to help her. He alights at a station and gets a call from his girlfriend, who tells him she’s pregnant. She is frightened and trying to decide whether to abort it. He tells her that he’ll go right away to the hospital.

Heading for Exit 8, he becomes caught in an endless loop of corridors. A sign informs him that he can only go forward if there are no anomalies – but it’s up to him to decide what is and isn’t an anomaly. If he fails, he will be sent back to the start, where he must go through the process again.

He passes Exit 0, carefully identifying and counting all markers (e.g., posters, doors, security cameras, a zombied-out man who passes him in the corridor) to make sure nothing has changed. He gets to subsequent exits with difficulty, only to be thrown back when he fails to notice unusual occurrences. Some are more obvious than others – blood running down the wall, a child’s cry emerging from the lockers, hordes of bat-like monsters invading the room, a flash flood. Others are more subtle, like an upside-down eight on the exit sign. During the walk, he encounters an eerily smiling man, a quiet child, and his own girlfriend, but it is left to him to figure out what is real and otherwise. It is only when he reaches the end that we understand that this is an internal journey as he processes the news of his child and his guilt at not helping the woman-with-child on the train. It ends in an inspiring moment when he finally completes the journey and, thrown back to the train scene, decides this time to help.

The movie, based on a video game (we’ve come to that), is well made for what it is, creepy rather than truly scary but engaging. The original music is especially effective in maintaining the suspense, and “Bolero” of course fits it thematically. I wish they had gotten a more idiosyncratic actor than boy band veteran Ninomiya Kazunari, though he’s harmless enough. The film breaks down into three parts from the varying perspectives of Ninomiya, the man passing in the corridor, and the child. That structure breaks the tension, the second in particular feeling like time-filler unrelated to the overall story. They would have been wiser to stick with Ninomiya, whose dilemma is the only one that really matters.

Nevertheless, I was impressed that they could flesh out a credible story from what seems a mindless game. I suppose that at least is an accomplishment.