Writer-director Kiyoshi Kurosawa is someone I am always happy to make time for. While I've seen the odd film from him that I didn't love, but still at least liked, many of his features are absolutely fantastic. The man is a master when it comes to unsettling atmosphere and off-kilter moments that show a main character being dragged further and further from the safety of their everyday life.
Cloud is all about an online reseller (Ryôsuke Yoshii, played by Masaki Suda). He often rips people off, whether it's low-balling those he buys his stock from or selling fake goods on to people who are then seriously angered by the fact that they were conned. Some people are so angered, in fact, that they start a campaign to doxx Yoshii, aiming to physically confront him, and maybe even take things to a deadly conclusion. As the threat looms larger around him, Yoshii finds himself becoming more and more isolated, having fired an eager young assistant (Sano, played by Daiken Okudaira) and stepped back slightly from his relationship with Akiko (Kotone Furukawa).
Whether you've offloaded some goods on ebay, experienced the many cheap offers and silly questions while trying to sell something on Facebook marketplace, or even made the mistake of ordering something from Temu without having read the small print, Cloud is focused on an interaction that most of us have tried at least once. That grounds everything in a way that allows the violence and extreme developments in the third act to feel surprisingly plausible. I am not on about any graphic or disturbing content when I say extreme developments, by the way, but rather the lengths that various people go to in order to satisfy an angry bloodlust that has been exponentially increased as they become emboldened while part of a large group.
Suda is very good as a lead character who isn't softened or made easy to like. He's an online grifter, but also constantly offering people a simple choice. Sellers can accept his offer for their goods or not, and buyers can spend time wondering about prices that seem too good to be true or just quickly click and see what arrives on their doorstep. Nobody is forced to do anything, even if the end result doesn't work out the way they want it to. Both Furukawa and Okudaira are also very good, the latter particularly enjoyable when his character barges back into the acting in time for an impressive and thought-provoking ending. Other excellent performances come from Amana Okayama, Yoshiyoshi Arakawa, Yutaka Matsushige, and Tetsuya Chiba, as well as others who make up the largely hostile group of people who do more than offer negative feedback to their least favourite online seller.
Intriguing, impressively mixing moments that feel a bit easy to dismiss with moments that feel all too plausible in a world that has given more information and power to those who can easily navigate their way around every dark and hidden corner of the internet, Cloud may not be up there with the best of Kurosawa, but it once again shows the ease with which he can tilt our world by just a few degrees to show people precariously balanced on a tightrope spanning a chasm that leads all the way to hell.
7/10
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