When Japanese indie developer Kotake Create released The Exit 8 in 2023, it quickly gained a cult following. A minimalist walking simulator set in a Japanese subway tunnel, the game entrapped players in an endless loop, forcing them to spot subtle anomalies to escape. Now, director Genki Kawamura has brought the eerie atmosphere of the game to life with his feature adaptation Exit 8, which just premiered in the Midnight Screenings section at the Cannes Film Festival ahead of its August release.
Starring Kazunari Ninomiya of J-pop group Arashi, the film follows a man—known only as “The Lost Man”—trapped in a sterile, looping corridor. Mimicking the game’s rules, he must detect changes in the environment, like altered posters or odd shadows, to progress. If no anomaly is seen, he must keep walking forward. Kawamura, drawn to the game’s structure and lack of narrative, envisioned the corridor as a purgatorial space where inner guilt and psychosis manifest as anomalies.
Inspired by traditional Noh theatre and the ghostly cinema of Kenji Mizoguchi, the director added surrealist and anime-style touches to deepen the experience. A notable reference is a corridor poster for a Maurits Escher exhibition, reinforcing the motif of infinite, disorienting space. Kawamura likens the corridor itself to HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey—an entity both divine and malevolent that observes those trapped inside.
To fully understand the source material, Kawamura played the game himself—though he admits the experience was incredibly stressful. Fortunately, Ninomiya, a self-proclaimed “super gamer,” brought his own familiarity with video game logic to the role. The actor describes the unconventional production process, noting that the film contains just 15 scenes and much of the story evolved during filming. It wasn’t until viewing the final cut that Ninomiya understood the full narrative arc.
The film introduces new elements not found in the game, including other characters like The Walking Man (Yamato Kochi), who continuously passes by the protagonist. These additions help develop a sense of world-building and psychological depth. An omnipresent force watches the corridor’s inhabitants, highlighting themes of surveillance and human behavior.
Echoing the immersive first-person style of Hardcore Henry and the atmospheric storytelling of The Last of Us, Exit 8 captures the tension and unease of its video game predecessor. It’s a unique cinematic experiment that transforms minimal gameplay into a haunting meditation on isolation, identity, and inner demons.
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