Monster

It starts with a fire—a distant, orange glow reflected in the windows of a quiet Japanese town. By the time the credits rolled on Monster, I realized that fire wasn't just a plot point; it was a warning that everything I thought I saw was burning down. I went into this film expecting a standard social drama about a mother protecting her son, but Hirokazu Kore-eda (the genius behind Shoplifters and Nobody Knows) is far too clever to give us something that linear. Instead, he hands us a Rubik’s Cube of a movie that keeps twisting until the colors finally, heartbreakingly, align.

The Three Sides of a Secret

The film is structured as a triptych—the same sequence of events told from three different perspectives. First, we follow Saori, played by the incredible Sakura Ando. She’s a widow who starts noticing her son, Minato (Soya Kurokawa), acting strangely. He’s cutting his own hair, losing sneakers, and claiming his teacher told him he has a "pig’s brain." As a viewer, I was right there with her, fuming at the school’s bureaucratic coldness and the seemingly sociopathic indifference of the teacher, Mr. Hori (Eita Nagayama).

But then, the perspective shifts. We see the same days through Mr. Hori’s eyes. Suddenly, the "villain" is a man whose life is being dismantled by a series of catastrophic misunderstandings. It’s a jarring experience that made me feel deeply guilty for how quickly I’d judged him in the first act. During this middle segment, I realized I’d been clutching a lukewarm cup of green tea so hard my knuckles were white, and it had developed a weird film on top that I definitely shouldn't have sipped, but I was too stressed to move.

The brilliance of Yuji Sakamoto’s screenplay is how it weaponizes our own assumptions. In our current era of "main character energy" and instant social media condemnation, Monster is a necessary gut-punch. It reminds me that most people are the villains in a story they don’t even know is being told.

The Secret World of Children

The final third belongs to the children, Minato and his classmate Yori (Hinata Hiiragi). This is where the movie transcends being a mere mystery and becomes something transcendent and fragile. The performances from these two young actors are staggering. There’s a naturalism here that Kore-eda is famous for coaxing out of kids, but there’s an added layer of internal conflict that feels painfully contemporary.

They spend their time in an abandoned train carriage in the woods—a secret universe away from the pressures of "being a man" or fitting into the rigid structures of Japanese society. As they play a game called "Who is the Monster?", the film slowly reveals that the "monster" isn't a person at all. It’s the collective noise of adult expectations, gender norms, and the fear of being different. Adults are basically incapable of seeing children as actual humans, and this film captures that disconnect with a precision that’s almost hard to watch.

Yuko Tanaka, who plays the school’s principal, delivers one of the most chillingly ambiguous performances I’ve seen in years. There’s a scene involving her and Minato blowing into brass instruments to "release" their secrets that left me completely breathless. It’s a moment of pure cinematic poetry that doesn't need a single line of dialogue to explain the weight of the characters' souls.

A Master’s Final Note

I can’t talk about this movie without mentioning the score. This was the final project for the legendary Ryuichi Sakamoto (The Last Emperor, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence) before he passed away. Knowing he composed these haunting, minimalist piano themes while facing his own end adds a layer of spiritual weight to the film. The music doesn't tell you how to feel; it just lingers in the air like mist over a lake.

Interestingly, this is the first time Kore-eda has directed a film he didn't write himself since his 1995 debut Maborosi. You can feel that collaboration—the tight, clockwork plotting of the writer Yuji Sakamoto blending with Kore-eda’s humanist touch. It’s a perfect marriage. While some might find the "Rashomon" structure a bit manipulative, I found it essential. It forces you to sit with your own prejudices.

The cinematography by Ryuto Kondo is lush but grounded, capturing the drenching rains and the overgrown greenery of the Japanese countryside. It feels like a world that is both beautiful and suffocating, which is exactly how it feels to be a child with a secret.

Monster is a rare beast: a thriller that makes you cry and a drama that keeps you on the edge of your seat. It challenges the "cancel culture" impulse to find a villain and instead asks for a much harder thing: empathy. By the time I reached the final, sun-drenched shot, I felt like I’d been through a spiritual wringer. It’s a film that stays with you, whispering questions long after the screen goes black. Seek it out, but bring tissues and a willingness to be wrong.