Monster (2023)
Japanese cinema has a long tradition of examining ordinary families under extraordinary pressure, and few directors working today understand that territory better than Hirokazu Kore-eda. Since his early documentaries in the 1990s, Kore-eda has built a body of work concerned with the quiet fractures inside domestic life: children left to fend for themselves, parents who love imperfectly, the gap between what we assume about other people and what is actually happening behind closed doors. His 2018 Palme d'Or winner Shoplifters brought him the kind of international recognition that made his subsequent projects genuinely event-level releases in arthouse circles, and Monster, released in Japan in June 2023 through TOHO and Fuji Television Network, arrived with considerable expectation on its shoulders. The screenplay was written not by Kore-eda himself, which is relatively unusual for him, but by Yuji Sakamoto (no relation to the composer). That collaborative setup gives the film a slightly different energy to his more introspective personal projects, leaning into genre shape in a way that surprised a good number of his regular admirers.
The premise is deceptively straightforward. A single mother, worried about her young son's increasingly erratic behaviour, begins pressing his school for answers after an incident involving a teacher. What follows is a story told in overlapping sections, each one revisiting the same sequence of events from a different vantage point, revealing just how thoroughly our perspective colours what we think we know. The structure owes a clear debt to the kind of multiple-viewpoint storytelling that Japanese cinema has returned to periodically since the postwar era, and for audiences who have spent time with films like Yi Yi, the idea of a film that asks you to hold several contradictory emotional truths at once will feel familiar, if no less demanding for that. Monster took the Best Screenplay award at Cannes 2023, as well as the Queer Palme, the latter recognition pointing toward themes the film handles with a good deal more care and seriousness than its genre trappings might initially suggest.
The cast assembled here is polished and, in places, genuinely exceptional. Sakura Ando, a performer with an impressive range across both film and television in Japan, takes the role of the mother, bringing a wired, searching quality to the part. Soya Kurokawa and Hinata Hiiragi play the two boys at the centre of the story, and the demands placed on child actors in a film this emotionally layered are considerable. Eita Nagayama plays the teacher caught in the eye of the storm, a role that requires him to be read very differently across the film's sections. And then there is the matter of the score: Monster carries the final completed work of Ryuichi Sakamoto, the composer and musician who died in March 2023, just months before the film's release. That context is impossible to separate from the listening experience, and Kore-eda, who worked with Sakamoto previously, has spoken about the weight of that collaboration in interviews surrounding the film.
I sat down to watch Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Monster (2023) expecting his usual gentle, observational family drama, but what I got was an incredibly intense, gripping mystery that completely took me by surprise. Structurally, it immediately reminded me of Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon. It’s basically one story told from a few different perspectives, and the narrative shifts massively depending on whose eyes you’re looking through. In the beginning, it actually felt a lot like Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt with Mads Mikkelsen, where you're absolutely convinced you know who the villain is and what the terrible situation is. But by the time the final act rolls around, the film has transformed into something entirely different and deeply profound.
To pull off a narrative trick like that, you need a cast that can ground all those shifting perspectives in absolute reality, and fair play to them, the acting is just amazing. Sakura Ando, who was also brilliant in Kore-eda’s Shoplifters, is an absolute powerhouse as the desperate mother trying to get to the bottom of what's happening to her son. She brings this raw, frantic energy to the screen that makes every scene she's in feel incredibly high-stakes. The child actors are equally spot on, delivering natural, unforced performances that keep the emotional tension sky-high without ever feeling manipulative.
But if I’m being completely honest, what truly takes Monster from being just a "very good" film into genuinely great territory is the music. It features the final, heartbreaking score by the legendary Ryuichi Sakamoto, and it is just breathtaking. The soundtrack weaves through those shifting perspectives perfectly, adding this layer of profound melancholy and beauty that elevates every single frame. It’s a gorgeous, masterfully crafted puzzle of a film that keeps you guessing right up until the end, and then breaks your heart in the best way possible. It's a brilliant piece of cinema that stays with you long after the screen goes black.
Monster is the kind of film that rewards patience and punishes snap judgements, which is, when you think about it, precisely the point it is trying to make. Kore-eda has always been interested in the stories we tell ourselves about the people closest to us, and here that interest is given a more formally rigorous and emotionally pointed shape than in some of his gentler work. For viewers already familiar with his films, it represents something of a shift in register without being a departure from his concerns. For newcomers, it is probably as good a place to start as any. Either way, Sakamoto's score alone will stay with you. Some films leave the cinema with you. This one earns that.
Rating: ★★★★ | Year: 2023 | Watched: 2026-06-12
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Monster (2023) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: BFI Player Amazon Channel · BFI Player Apple TV Channel
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: MUBI · MUBI Amazon Channel
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
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