Something to watch tonight: Exit 8

Just landed as a digit­al rent­al is the excel­lent Japanese video game adapt­a­tion, Exit 8. I was lucky enough to review it for the RNZ web­site when it was in cinemas earli­er this year: Anomalies like that are the driv­ing force of Genki Kawamura’s fas­cin­at­ing video game adapt­a­tion, Exit 8. A com­muter on his way to a temp job exits his train at an unfa­mil­i­ar sta­tion. As he heads to the exit, the same four sec­tions of sub­way repeat in a loop and he learns that his only way out is to solve a puzzle that requires his close atten­tion.If the next loop is identic­al to the ori­gin­al – i.e. no anom­alies – he should con­tin­ue and he will get one exit closer to his escape. If he encoun­ters an anom­aly, he should retreat and the next exit num­ber will still increase by one. When he gets to Exit 8, he will be free to return to his life out­side. We think. He hopes. But if he makes a mis­take – fails to notice an anom­aly and advances, or retreats when he didn’t have to – he will return to Exit 0 and start all over again. Some of these anom­alies are benign (a door handle in a dif­fer­ent pos­i­tion) and some are creepy – the eyes in the sub­way advert­ising posters fol­low­ing him around. Some are down­right freaky. The main char­ac­ter, appeal­ingly played by sing­er and act­or Kazunari Ninomiya, is called The Lost Man for more reas­ons than one. It turns out that this puzzle is designed to teach him some­thing about him­self, espe­cially when he dis­cov­ers that he is not alone in this super­nat­ur­al subway. As an audi­ence mem­ber, you will be inves­ted in the outcome. It’s worth read­ing the whole thing, at least I hope you’ll agree. it’s one of my favour­ite writ­ten reviews of the year. Where to watch Exit 8 Aotearoa: Digital rent­al from AroVision Australia: Digital rental Canada: Digital rental Ireland: Digital rental India: Not cur­rently available USA: Digital rental UK: Digital rental Further listening Exit 8 was also my choice for the ‘in cinema’ sec­tion of my weekly appear­ance on RNZ Nights – this time with fill-in host Mark Leishman. We also talked about the two Tom Hanks stream­ing films Greyhound and Finch, and the Anthony Hopkins drama about Sir Nicholas Winton, One Life.