Ride or Die

There is a specific kind of silence that follows a scream of liberation, and Ryuichi Hiroki’s Ride or Die (2021) lives entirely within that ringing in your ears. It’s a film that begins with a literal bang—or rather, a gruesome, desperate thud—and then spends the next two-plus hours trying to figure out if the characters can survive the vacuum they’ve created. I watched this while sipping a lukewarm can of Boss Coffee, and by the time the first act ended, I realized I hadn't taken a sip in forty minutes because my jaw was physically clenched.

Love is a Blood-Stained Getaway Car

Based on Ching Nakamura’s manga Gunjo, this isn't your typical "on the lam" thriller. It’s a sprawling, messy, and deeply felt drama that uses a crime as a catalyst to explore the jagged edges of queer identity and trauma in contemporary Japan. Kiko Mizuhara plays Rei, a wealthy, cool-headed lesbian whose life is upended when Nanae (Honami Sato), her unrequited love from high school, calls her out of the blue. The request? Kill her abusive husband. Rei does it without hesitation, and the film follows their subsequent flight into the unknown.

What struck me immediately was how Ryuichi Hiroki—a director who cut his teeth in the "pink film" industry before graduating to prestige dramas like Vibrator (2003)—refuses to make this a slick action movie. He’s much more interested in the sweat, the awkward silences in cheap hotel rooms, and the way blood looks when it dries on a designer jacket. The film is long—142 minutes—and it feels every bit of it. At times, the pacing is like a Thelma & Louise remake scripted by someone who thinks happiness is a structural flaw, but that sluggishness eventually serves the emotional weight of the story. You feel the exhaustion of these two women as they realize that killing the monster didn't actually make the world a safer place.

Two Women, One Point of No Return

The success of a drama like this rests entirely on the shoulders of its leads, and the chemistry here is electric, albeit frequently toxic. Kiko Mizuhara is a revelation; she carries a brittle intensity that suggests Rei is constantly five seconds away from shattering. Opposite her, Honami Sato has the arguably harder job, playing a woman so hollowed out by domestic violence that her motivations are often opaque and frustrating.

I found myself shouting at the screen during a few of Nanae's more manipulative moments. She’s not an easy character to love, which is exactly why the film works. It resists the urge to make these women "perfect victims." They are flawed, selfish, and occasionally cruel to one another. Their relationship is a collision of Rei's obsessive, self-sacrificing love and Nanae's desperate need for a lifeboat. It’s the kind of movie that makes you want to delete your ex's number and throw your phone into a river.

The supporting cast, including Yoko Maki and Anne Suzuki, fill out the world with glimpses of the lives Rei and Nanae left behind, but this is a two-woman show through and through. The performances are raw and unapologetic, aided significantly by the fact that this was the first Japanese production to employ an "intimacy coordinator." In the context of contemporary cinema, this is a massive deal. It allowed for sex scenes that feel genuinely narrative-driven rather than exploitative—a shift that reflects the changing tides of the industry post-#MeToo.

The Netflix Effect on Japanese Edges

As a Netflix original, Ride or Die represents an interesting moment in the streaming era. Ten years ago, a film this long, this queer, and this uncompromisingly bleak might have struggled to find a screen outside of a niche film festival. Streaming has effectively democratized "extreme" Japanese cinema, bringing the gritty aesthetic of the 90s V-Cinema era into the living rooms of people who might usually stick to breezy rom-coms.

Technically, the film is gorgeous. Tadashi Kuwabara’s cinematography captures the neon hum of Japanese rest stops and the harsh, unforgiving light of the coastline with equal skill. There’s a scene involving a motorcycle ride at night that is so beautifully framed it almost makes you forget there’s a body in a trunk somewhere back in the timeline. The soundtrack, too, avoids the melodramatic swells you might expect, opting instead for a more atmospheric, brooding soundscape that mirrors the characters' internal chaos.

My only real gripe is the runtime. While I appreciate the "slow cinema" approach to a thriller premise, there are sections in the middle where the narrative loops in on itself. We get it—they’re sad, they’re trapped, and the past is a nightmare. Some of the flashbacks to their high school days felt a bit "young adult" compared to the visceral reality of their present-day situation. However, these are minor complaints for a film that takes such big, messy swings.

Ultimately, Ride or Die is a heavy, gorgeous, and deeply uncomfortable experience that I’m glad exists. It doesn't offer easy answers or a clean getaway, but it does offer a hauntingly beautiful look at what happens when two people decide they’d rather burn out together than fade away in isolation. It’s a film about the high cost of freedom and the even higher cost of loving someone who doesn't know how to love themselves yet. If you have the patience for its deliberate pace, it will stay with you long after the final frame fades to black.