A young factory worker runs a side business as an online reseller using the alias “ラーテル.” When his hustle pays off big, he quits his day job and moves with his girlfriend to a secluded rental house by the lake where he continues to operate his reselling business. But their dream of easy living quickly turns into a nightmare as strange and terrifying events begin to unfold around them. A film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, starring Masaki Suda, Kotone Furukawa, Daiken Okudaira, Amane Okayama, Masaaki Akahori, Mutsuo Yoshioka, Yugo Mikawa, Maho Yamada, Toshihiro Yashiba, Yoshiyuki Morishita, Tetsuya Chiba, Yutaka Matsushige, Yoshiyoshi Arakawa, and Masataka Kubota.
Cloud
クラウド
Kiyoshi Kurosawa
(2024)
Ryosuke Yoshii (吉井良介 portrayed by Masaki Suda) has a keen eye for business opportunities as a reseller. With his sharp instincts and willingness to take calculated risks, he spots potential in the most unlikely places. During a visit to a rundown factory, he negotiates with the owner, Mr. Soichi Tonoyama (殿山宗一 portrayed by Masaaki Akahori) and his wife Chizuru (殿山千鶴 portrayed by Maho Yamada), to purchase a stockpile of unsold ion electronic therapy devices at the rock-bottom price of 3,000 yen each, totaling 90,000 yen for the entire lot.
Mr. Tonoyama becomes visibly agitated, pointing out that each device retails for 400,000 yen. When Ryosuke casually mentions that the actual manufacturing cost is only 10,000 yen per unit, Tonoyama fires back, insisting that Ryosuke is ignoring the assembly wages, patent application fees, design costs, and product development expenses that went into creating the devices.
Unshaken, Ryosuke makes his final argument: getting rid of this junk would cost Tonoyama more than 90,000 yen in removal fees. With his offer firmly on the table as non-negotiable, Tonoyama reluctantly accepts the deal, selling the entire inventory to Ryosuke.
Ryosuke brings the devices back to his apartment, where he carefully photographs one of the units and lists all 30 devices on the Bazari online commerce platform under his alias ラーテル (Ratel), pricing each at 200,000 yen.
Moments later, he finds himself glued to his screen as each device sells in rapid succession. Ryosuke appears visibly relieved as his gut instinct proves correct. By the end of the night, all 30 devices have sold, bringing in 6,000,000 yen total revenue.
The next day at the garment factory where Ryosuke works, owner Mr. Takimoto (滝本, portrayed by Yoshiyoshi Arakawa) recognizes his potential as a leader and once again offers him a managerial position with a salary increase. However, Ryosuke politely declines, telling Takimoto that he’s mistaken about him. Undeterred, Takimoto forces Ryosuke into accepting a junior section chief role.
After work, Ryosuke settles into his apartment and scans Amazon’s best-selling games, his attention immediately caught by “Fiber Emblem – Neptune” which is on limited-time sale. As he deliberates over how many copies to buy for reselling, his girlfriend Akiko (秋子, portrayed by Kotone Furukawa) distracts him. By the time he glances back at the screen, the game is already sold out.
Ryosuke begins experiencing a series of increasingly disturbing events. What starts as what seems like a harmless prank, finding a dead rat wrapped in paper on his stairway, quickly turns into something more sinister. Someone sets up a wire at neck height across the road where Ryosuke normally rides his motorcycle home, his mentor Muraoka (村岡 portrayed by Masataka Kubota) pressures him to invest in a startup auction website, and Mr. Takimoto shows up at his apartment late at night, forcing Ryosuke to hide and pretend he’s not home.
Shaken by these mounting incidents, Ryosuke decides to leave the city entirely. He rents a secluded lakehouse where he plans to run his reselling business full-time while living with his girlfriend, hoping the remote location will provide the safety and peace of mind he desperately needs. Ryosuke hires Sano (佐野, portrayed by Daiken Okudaira), a local teenager, to be his personal assistant.
The next day, while Ryosuke is busy posting his reselling products on the website, he remains unaware that Sano is standing behind him. Ryosuke is startled when Sano notices his username ラーテル and asks what it means. Ryosuke explains that he can’t use his real name, so ラーテル serves as his online alias. He then scolds Sano for sneaking up on him and tells him that his screen is private. Feeling guilty for being harsh with Sano, Ryosuke grabs a designer handbag from his inventory and asks if Sano can tell whether it’s genuine or fake. Ryosuke admits that he doesn’t know either because it doesn’t matter to him as he plans to sell everything before he himself finds out the truth.
Written and directed by Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Cloud is a psychological thriller that explores the intriguing world of online reselling, where sellers can remain completely anonymous behind alias usernames.
The first half of the film is exceptional, with tension that steadily builds while keeping the identity of Ryosuke’s tormentor hidden. Initially, I suspected Ryosuke possessed some kind of mystical ability to predict which items would resell at high prices, but as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that he simply has either a very keen business instinct or exceptional luck.
The unexpected twist comes in the second half when a group of assailants discovers that ラーテル is actually Ryosuke, tracks down his location, and sets out to hunt him down. While this revelation is surprising, it also feels somewhat illogical.
I can understand why buyers who discovered they’d purchased counterfeit products and sellers whom Ryosuke had exploited with rock-bottom prices would feel betrayed and seek revenge. However, the leap to attempted murder feels like the narrative suddenly abandons its grounded reality for something conveniently unrealistic.
However, I really enjoyed the final twist which reveals that Sano isn’t just a regular local teenager but has ties to a crime syndicate. Although the film never explicitly explains Sano’s relationship with the organization, he clearly commands respect from its members and even from the syndicate’s chairman.
Cloud (クラウド) premiered at Biennale di Venezia in out of competition section on 30 August 2024. The film was theatrically released in Japan on 27 September.
Cloud (クラウド) was officially selected as Japan’s entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards. However, Cloud was not nominated for the award.
