One of the best surprises in cinema this past year was the news that Ryusuke Hamaguchi, just two years after his perfect one-two punch of Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy and Drive My Car, had secretly shot and completed another film that was to premiere at the Venice Film Festival. After picking up the Grand Jury Prize there, the serene and expertly scripted Evil Does Not Exist will now roll out to kick off the summer movie season courtesy of Sideshow and Janus Films. Ahead of the U.S. release, the new trailer and poster have arrived.
Rory O’Connor said in his review, “A quiet, funny, confounding mystery, Evil plays out amongst the forests and streams of a remote village close to Tokyo. Tensions are raised when two representatives for the glamping company, Takahashi (Ryuji Kosaka) and Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani), arrive to talk things over. The locals, in particular a man named Takumi (a tightly wound performance by Hitoshi Omika, a star of Fortune and Fantasy), voice their concerns about how it might affect the town’s drinking water. The proprietor of a noodle restaurant wonders if her Udon will taste the same. ‘Everything that happens upstream,’ an older man sagely explains, ‘affects what happens downstream.’ When the reps’ attempts to dissuade anxieties fail, they decide to meet with Takumi to hash it out.”
See the trailer below via IndieWire.
Evil Does Not Exist opens on May 3.