In this surreal, Lynchian debut feature from Japan, an unsuspecting slacker is sucked into a strange and deadly parallel universe when he starts to play a mysterious videogame that seems to kill those who play it.

When videogame-loving slacker Miroku visits a website innocuously advertised on a packet of tissues, he finds himself drawn into a perplexing game that requires him to grapple with a seemingly endless series of bizarre questions in a complex, deadly puzzle. As each layer of the intricate puzzle box is opened, a new world of danger and death is presented. Trapped in a room recalling Jean-Paul Sartre's vision of hell in No Exit and populated by characters as strange as any Lewis Carroll ever created, Miroku helplessly watches as tempers fray and stakes are raised to increasingly deadly levels. First-time director, Torico, presents an odd assortment of characters that include rifle-toting men clad in kabuki theater costumes, creepy identical twin girls, a maniacal tattoo-headed punk, a mechanical rabbit and, of course, a dwarf. These along with even more phantasmagorical sights will leave you nearly as frenzied as Miroku. While at times evoking David Lynch and Alice in Wonderland, Torico nonetheless combines a clear, personal vision with biting social satire to mark the start of what should be a fascinating directorial career.

Scott Weinberg's Cinematical Review