Video Game Adaptation ‘Exit 8’ Makes a Modest Concept Travel a Very Long Way

Genki Kawamura’s “Exit 8” is a very slight but clever movie. The director, working alongside screenwriter Kentaro Hirase, has adapted a 2023 video game of the same name created by a Japanese concern, Kotake Create. Tech-wise, the game seems fairly unspectacular, being a point-of-view endeavor with graphics that are, let’s put it kindly, retro. Economy of means hasn’t hampered its appeal. That someone thought a film based on the thing would be marketable points to a significant level of popularity.How true have Messrs. Kawamura and Hirase been to their source material? A brief foray into online gaming forums leads me to surmise that “Exit 8” is being met with admiration by those who partake of such things. Films based on video games, having been with us for some time, are hot commercial properties. As I write this, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” is top at the box office.These pictures are an odd species, being exercises that transform a participatory enterprise into a reflective experience. The original Exit 8 is a memory puzzle in which attention to detail is vital. Players are situated within a Japanese subway station that can only be egressed through, you guessed it, Exit 8. The challenge is in navigating through its passageways in order to progress from exits zero through seven. With each attempt a challenger is tasked with taking note of changes in the environment. Should these not be taken into account, the game begins anew.Imagine Harold Ramis’s “Groundhog Day” (1993) as an existential monster movie, and you’ll have an idea what Mr. Kawamura has given us. The initial moments put us firmly in the headspace of our protagonist, a character known only as the Lost Man (pop star Kazunari Ninomiya, appealingly haggard). He steps into a crowded subway train and watches as a commuter berates a young mother for daring to bring a crying baby into a public space. Our man is dull-eyed and tired, and his asthma is acting up. There have been better days.Upon exiting the train, he receives a phone call from a former girlfriend (Nana Komatsu). She’s pregnant with the Lost Man’s child. What are they to do? The cell reception in the station is iffy, but he does manage to tell her that he’s on his way to discuss the matter. Trouble begins when he repeatedly gets lost in a peculiarly troublesome set of corridors. Hasn’t he passed this way before, with that photo booth, that set of lockers, and that array of subway ads?One of the ads announces a museum exhibition dedicated to the art of M.C. Escher. This is a nod on the part of Messrs. Kawamura and Hirase to the Dutch artist’s visual conundrums in which time and space seem to be forever looping upon themselves. And so it goes for the Lost Man who can’t, for the life of him, find his way out of his predicament. He stops to read what appears to be official signage: “If you discover an anomaly, turn back immediately . . . if you don’t, proceed in the direction of Exit 8.”The Lost Man meets and then re-meets a select group of characters, including a frighteningly benign businessman (Yamato Kochi), a boy of few words (Aru Asanuma), and a young woman of potential sexual avarice (Katone Hanase). The real stars of the movie are Keisuke Imamura, whose cinematography casts a blandly anonymous light on the grime of public spaces, and Messrs. Kawamura and Hirase who manage to throw gratifying curveballs into a conceit that could have proved tiresome. So what if the upshot of “Exit 8” is trite? For the 90 minutes leading up to it the filmmakers manage to bring more variety to a simple gimmick than it may, in the long run, deserve.

Video Game Adaptation ‘Exit 8’ Makes a Modest Concept Travel a Very Long Way

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