Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa | 115 mins | 2002
Kurosawa's disquieting slow-burn focuses on Mamoru (Tadanobu Asano), a young, divorced father and employee at a hand towel factory who, with his co-worker and only friend, Nimura (Joe Odagiri), begins entertaining homicidal thoughts about their boss (Takashi Sasano) after Nimura is entrusted (and soon develops a strange fascination) with Mamoru’s poisonous pet jellyfish. While "Bright Future" suggests a departure from Kurosawa’s run of much-admired J-horror films—all the while representing an artistic breakthrough for its expressive use of digital video—this lean and eerie picture loses none of his fascination with impending apocalypse and creeping dread.