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Directed by Toshiaki Toyoda | 97 minutes | 15+ | Victorian Premiere |
8:15pm Friday, 15 May | Balam Balam Place - Cinema 2 | Buy Tickets | Buy Passes
Renegade Japanese auteur Toshiaki Toyada on an outrageous and violent journey beyond time and space
At the mountainous retreat of sinister, sadistic cult leader Master Hanzo (Chihara Jr.), a cluster of credulous souls have gathered for guidance towards spiritual enlightenment. Among them, however, is nihilistic hitman Shinno (Ryuhei Matsuda) and his client Nonoka, who holds Hanzo responsible for the disappearance of her boyfriend Rosuke. Despite Nonoka’s sudden and inexplicable suicide, Shinno elects to honour the contract, but that’s quickly revealed to be no simple task. A formidable sorcerer, Hanzo is only delighted by the challenge of his new adversary, and the true circumstances of ascetic seeker Rosuke are far more uncanny than one might imagine...
Japan’s Toshiaki Toyoda built his reputation as an auteur of finely crafted outsider cinema, with legendary cult films Pornostar (1998), Blue Spring (2001) and 9 Souls (2003). Subsequent legal problems only increased his social dissidence, increasingly vociferous in his criticism of Japan’s conservative mores and drawn to more radical fascinations, evident in his recent, informally linked “Mt. Resurrection Wolf” short films.
SIMILAR: Everything Everywhere All At Once, Decision to Leave, The Holy Mountain
"One for the more philosophically inclined, but those who are willing to lose themselves in a piece of film art" - Cain Noble-Davies, FilmInk
"imaginative mix that’s part spiritual quest, part absurdist lark, part indefinable whatsit" - Dennis Harvey, Variety
Country: Japan
Year: 2025
Language: Japanese