Teki Cometh

Gisuke Watanabe (Kyozo Nagatsuka) is a retired French literature professor. Since his wife passed away 20 years ago, he has lived alone quietly in a traditional Japanese house passed down from his grandfather’s generation. He leads a regular life - rising at the same time and going to bed at the same time every day - and enjoying occasional company from former students, particularly Yasuko Takatsukasa (Kumi Takiuchi), for whom he prepares home-cooked meals. Aware that his savings will run out in a few years, he silently considers ending his life while he still has enough to pay for his funeral. 

One day, he receives an email containing a link with a chilling message: “An enemy is coming from the north.” He initially dismisses it as a hoax, but gradually, an ominous feeling grows within him. Soon, he begins to experience haunting dreams that seem to expose his deepest sins... Is it all in his imagination? Haunted by the unknown “enemy” from the north, he loses his sense of self as his respectable facade starts to crumble.

Yasutake Tsutsui, the original novelist, once called this work "a novel that I thought was impossible to film”. However, seasoned director Daihachi Yoshida successfully translates the book’s deep and unconscious karma and the self that cannot let go - even in later life - into this visually striking black-and-white contemporary film.

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