The last time skilled Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa attended the Venice Film Festival, he won the event’s prestigious Best Director award for his period drama. spy wife. He returns to the main event at the Italian Festival this week cloudIt was the first action film in his acclaimed film history. The film received a boost ahead of its world premiere on Lido Island on Friday morning as word reached Venice that Japan had chosen Lido for its world premiere. cloud as its official entry into the Oscar competition for Best International Film.
The film tells the story of Ryosuke Yoshii (played by Masaki Sugata), a worker in a small factory who earns a side job by reselling various goods (medical equipment, handbags, collectible statues, etc.) online. . Gradually, Yoshii began to avoid the people around him—an old friend who taught him the scalping game, his considerate boss at the factory, some of the people he did business with online and in person—to focus on growing his bank balance . But when ominous and disturbing incidents begin to occur around Yoshii with increasing frequency, he and his girlfriend (played by Okayama Amane) flee the city to a large house by the lake and hire a A seemingly simple-minded local (Daken Okudaira) serves as his sales assistant. There, growing hostility finally found him.
Kurosawa’s previous film festival honors include Best Director awards at Cannes and Rome; hollywood reporter shared via Zoom before he arrived in Venice to discuss the making of his 29th feature film.
What inspired you about the premise and themes of this film?
The inspiration for this project came not from a thematic perspective, but from my long-standing desire to make an action film. Action movies are a genre deeply rooted in film history, but producing a scene in contemporary Japan presented unique logistical and financial challenges. But the ambition to make an action movie was always with me.
A big challenge I set for myself was to deviate from the typical protagonists of Japanese action films – usually yakuza, police or vigilantes – and instead focus on ordinary people. These are people who have nothing to do with violence in their daily lives, but who find themselves in life-or-death situations that require extreme measures to survive. This requires crafting a story that puts ordinary people in extraordinary situations—to kill or be killed. Getting them there is the biggest storytelling challenge.
What appealed to you about having the protagonist become an online reseller? What does this career mean to you?
It’s a personal connection – I know someone who does this type of work and I find it interesting. Such people exist in a gray area where what they do is technically legal but often borders on the moral edge. They are extremely diligent, constantly checking their computers, purchasing items, making lists, and selling them, all while living in Tokyo’s demanding urban environment. To me, this career is emblematic of contemporary capitalism—if you don’t have exceptional talent or wealth, reselling is one way to navigate the system. It’s interesting because when you think about it, this small-scale operation mirrors what big companies do on a larger scale: buy low and sell high, but with little awareness that any ethical boundaries are being crossed. This occupation feels like a powerful metaphor for the times we live in.
Yes, I interpret this as a very pure and corrosive form of laissez-faire capitalism, in which the character gradually becomes less and less concerned about the impact of his activities on those he trades with – eventually even his closest Personal relationship. The pursuit of profit has become increasingly desperate. I really liked how his actions didn’t necessarily seem so irrational at first, and you used horror movie tropes to create a sense of surrounding evil that would befall him for reasons we don’t understand. But as the protagonist is forced to explore why this is happening to him, the audience is prompted to question his actions and culpability on a deeper level, until the criticism embedded in the film gradually becomes more and more apparent—even as it bogs down. A complete action movie trope.
I really like this lens. This reading made sense to me that making this film made sense.
‘cloud’
Venice Film Festival
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the assistant role. I found him a bit inscrutable. What is your intention there?
When he created the assistant character, he did so not because he believed someone exactly like him existed in the world, but more out of the needs of the genre. I wanted a character who looked ordinary on the surface, but actually had a disturbing, almost hidden capacity for violence. Okuhira Oken, who plays him, is a brilliant young Japanese actor who, while not yet widely known, has a unique appeal that makes the character enigmatic. Initially, I wasn’t sure if the character would work, but Oppei brought his own mystical energy to the role which really elevated it.
I usually prefer to leave explanations to the audience, but since you ask, it seems to me that the assistant represents the devil. He makes a subtle, almost invisible pact with the protagonist – granting him happiness and despair in equal measure. This is the easiest way for me to view his role in the story.
Combined with the anti-capitalist criticism above, I’ve come to see him as a logical endpoint: the pursuit of profit at all costs turns one into a blank, heartless gangster.
Oh, I absolutely agree. This all happens in the final scene between the two of them in the car. How you interpret the film depends on how you interpret this interaction. You might think of him as a monster of capitalism, or more like an abstract devil. Of course, how the film is viewed is now in the hands of the audience.
Given these themes and how you approach them, I found myself wondering whether the film was a response to the social changes taking place in Japan—the emergence of a more American-style business culture, as well as the growing income gap, These factors are eroding some of the country’s long-term revenue. Or do you wish your criticism was more universal than that?
So, the story takes place in contemporary Japan and focuses on the lives of ordinary people, which naturally reflects the reality of modern Japanese society. I’m not entirely familiar with the nuances of American society, but it’s clear that many countries are grappling with the growing gap between rich and poor. Japan is not yet at that point. Historically, Japan experienced a postwar economic boom that fostered a strong middle-class identity that still lingers and is cherished by us.
But as we move forward, the uncertainty grows. Even among those who still identify as middle-class, there’s an undercurrent of anxiety — people feel cornered, as if the stability they once took for granted is disappearing. This sense of personal despair, this fear that “I need to do something or I might lose everything,” is becoming more and more apparent. I wanted to explore that feeling in the film—to capture that unease that slowly seeps into society.
You’ve said your first priority with the project was simply to fulfill a long-held desire to make an action movie. Now that you’ve made it this far, do you have any other potential filmmaking aspirations? Over the course of your long career, you’ve experimented with a variety of styles and styles. How do you see your career aspirations at this stage?
When it came to my career, I never really had a specific trajectory mapped out or a set idea of what I wanted to do professionally. Of course, journalists and others around me may help shape this narrative, but for me, the depth and richness of cinematic expression naturally drives me. No matter how many films I made, I never felt like they were truly perfect or complete. In fact, the more films I create, the more elusive the concept of film itself becomes, as if it’s always one step ahead of me. This simple, almost primal desire to understand what movies are really about keeps me going, and I think it will continue to do so until the day I die.
