Monster
Directed by Hirokazu Kore-edaAls het gedrag van haar zoontje Minato verandert, houdt Saori zijn leraar Michitoshi verantwoordelijk. Ze stormt de school binnen en eist onmiddellijk uitleg. Maar naarmate het verhaal zich verder ontvouwt, komt de waarheid langzaam boven water.
Monster Ratings & Reviews
- jwpi023 februari 2025Once again a non American film gets straight to the heart of the ambiguous nature of the human condition, both in a pure form, and in the context of society. This film touched me deeply in many ways, as a father a son and a man within a society. A society which desperately wants to appear progressive and open minded but always reverts to the safety of the hard shell of a deeply biased conservative outlook.
- Kevin Ward2 juli 2025An expertly crafted drama where nothing is quite as it seems. A slight shift in perspective and some additional context can often monumentally alter our world view. Such is the case with Kore-eda’s Monster. What starts off as one thing brilliantly revealed to be something completely different as the narrative layers are pulled back. I don’t want to divulge much more than to say I loved it. It’s actually my first Kore-eda, though I’ve had Shoplifters and Broker on my watchlist seemingly forever.
- Rowan Krzysiak26 januari 2025A lot of Japanese media uses jilted timelines to hide a poor story. This was very different. It layers in such a way so that the 'reality' becomes clearer but the truth remains in the forced and accidental misconceptions. It's pretty great and recommended.
- Varun19 oktober 2024A good film that unravels using a plot structure of shifting perspectives to tackle various different issues and themes. Each person deals with their own different challenges caused by their inability to see the whole picture due to lies, denial and socially alienating norms. The strange confusing start leads to a satisfactory explanation in interesting, devastating and also beautifully subtle ways. What this film captures well is the level of cascading tragedy that can spread like cancer from the ignorant and hateful ways in which people deal with issues that they deem inconsequential. The movie was also well shot and had many picturesque scenes. I’ll end this review with a quote that really stood out to me. "If only some people can have it, that's not happiness. That's just nonsense. Happiness is something anyone can have."
- Desmond Dale24 januari 2025I really wasn't sold on the movie until about midway through as it blitzed through my shield of skepticism and indifference and captured my heart. It's very naturalistic and serene with shots that are so stunning that they elicit feelings of whimsy. And when the it really narrows its focus it becomes apparent that this is a somewhat tragic love story centered around two angelic blank slates at odds with the ugliness and judgemental nature of the world around them.
- rg94001 november 2024I ended up watching this super late, basically a midnight showing. I was very worried that a foreign drama very late in an empty theater would put me to sleep, but no, I was fully engaged. I went in without really knowing anything about the movie other than the famous director. And I think that leads to an interesting experience, but there is no way to really review it without discussing it at a high level. This is similar to Rashomon where the usage of perspective is heavily explored. It starts by exploring events across a few days from one angle, then shifts it to another. It's fascinating just from a technical level because it actually ends up being a bit of a mystery box. You need to keep track of small clues, and see how they morph from different angles. But at the same time, I do think it becomes a bit challenging. My one complaint would be that this storytelling trick sometimes showcases the hand of the director a bit too much. By that, I mean that sometimes the way things are hidden, or the way they get recontextualized, feels less organic and more for the sake of the story. But I would say that only applies to less than 10% of the overall events. Also, to avoid repetition, after switching perspectives, the movie does not hold your hand. It jumps between events, letting the viewer extrapolate what happened given their new understanding of motivations/sequence of events. I enjoyed that, but every now and then I did find myself getting a bit confused with the timeline, thinking something had already happened before it did. A lot of my review has been on the technical/plot aspect of the movie. Partially, because I enjoyed it and found it innovative, but also because talking about the emotional/thematic core would certainly be spoilers. Suffice it to say, I found this movie haunting and beautiful, and an excellent exploration into what really constitutes a "monster" in society.
Monster Trivia
Monster was released on 2 juni 2023.
Monster was directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda.
Monster has a runtime of 2 u, 6 m.
Monster was produced by Kenji Yamada, Genki Kawamura, Megumi Banse, Hijiri Taguchi, Taichi Ito.
Als het gedrag van haar zoontje Minato verandert, houdt Saori zijn leraar Michitoshi verantwoordelijk. Ze stormt de school binnen en eist onmiddellijk uitleg. Maar naarmate het verhaal zich verder ontvouwt, komt de waarheid langzaam boven water.
The key characters in Monster are Saori Mugino (Sakura Ando), Minato Mugino (Soya Kurokawa), Yori Hoshikawa (Hinata Hiiragi).
Monster is rated 9.
Monster is a Drama, Thriller, Mysterie film.
Monster has an audience rating of 9 out of 10.
Monster has made US$ 21,3 mln. at the box office.