Cloud – Movie Review (3/5)

CLOUD is a Japanese thriller about an online reseller with questionable morals, who finds himself hunted by those who see themselves as victims. But is he really that bad? And are they truly victims?! Nothing is black and white in this thriller. Read our Cloud movie review here!

CLOUD is a Japanese thriller that had its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival and has now gotten a theatrical release in the U.S.

The film escalates into something brutal—a fight for survival. That’s certainly not what our main character had in mind, but you can’t blame him, as it does seem like a wild escalation. Still, it’s always dangerous when people feel like they’ve got nothing left to lose.

Continue reading our Cloud movie review below. The film is out in U.S. theaters now.

When digital anger turns physical

In Cloud, we follow a young man, Yoshii, who tries to get rich by buying up small amounts of popular products and reselling them at (sometimes grotesquely) inflated prices.

In other words, he’s a salesman. Or a “reseller” as the popular term used in this movie. However, since everything happens online, he never has to face angry customers in person.

That is about to change.

At first, we meet Yoshii as a factory worker at an industrial laundry. His boss wants to groom him for a leadership position, but Yoshii isn’t interested in a career there. His dream is to succeed with his own online reselling business.

Living the dream?

When Cloud begins, he’s running the business out of his dull, gray Tokyo apartment. A place that looks more like a warehouse than a home. After a few successful deals, he manages to expand his business and move with his girlfriend into a big house in the countryside.

Of course, this move won’t stop furious customers and ruthless competitors from tracking Yoshii down to get revenge.

There are no real “heroes” in Cloud, but plenty of villains and criminals—many of whom see themselves as the ones who’ve been wronged. This makes for a surprisingly gripping story that escalates into shocking violence.

Japanese storytelling

Personally, I tend to prefer the South Korean style over the Japanese one, but Cloud brings us closer to the kind of storytelling you’d typically expect from South Korea.

The difference lies in pacing and character development: the Japanese approach remains more understated than the high-intensity Korean style. Because of that, Cloud will likely resonate more with fans of Japanese movies than it did with me.

With a runtime of 124 minutes, it edges toward the typical South Korean length, where movies often run well past the two-hour mark. Cloud doesn’t go that far, and it honestly couldn’t sustain itself much longer in its current form.

Still, it’s definitely worth watching, and the third act goes all in with chaotic, wild energy.

Watch Cloud in theaters

Cloud comes from Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who also directed the cyber-horror classic Pulse back in 2001. If you’ve watched that one, you’ll already be familiar with his style and recurring themes, both of which are present here in Cloud.

I’ve always appreciated stories with nuance—where characters aren’t boxed into neat “hero” or “villain” categories, but instead reveal that anyone can be either.

Here, individual choices ultimately determine fate. People may want to blame others, but they themselves are the catalyst. Again, they won’t see it that way, but they can’t ignore the consequences that hit them.

Cloud opened in New York theaters on July 18, followed by Los Angeles on July 25, 2025, before kicking off a nationwide rollout.

Details

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Writer: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Stars: Masaki Suda, Kotone Furukawa, Daiken Okudaira, Amane Okayama, Yoshiyoshi Arakawa, Masataka Kubota, Yutaka Matsushige

Images courtesy Janus Films.