Cloud

...is obsessed with media-stoked alienation, and it benefits mightily from Kurosawa’s formal mastery.

Shadows lurk in the periphery, and should you catch sight of them before Yoshii does, Cloud might steal a breath from you.

...all-time bleakest episode of Only Fools and Horses.

...Kurosawa’s film searches, perhaps in vain, for where this violence within us comes from...

...it’s a reminder of Kurosawa’s remarkable skill with pacing and plotting, delivering a brisk film that leaves one pondering its themes, especially what it means to live in an era when nothing is real.

...updates the filmmaker’s signature focus for a modern world that’s enmeshed in an infinite (but invisible) network of small cruelties and bitter grievances.