As we have mentioned a number of times before, there has been an effort during the last few years in order to revive J-horror to its 90s glory (the same more or less applying to martial arts/action films and pinku), with a number of filmmakers bringing new ideas to the category. Tomojiro Amano also attempts to do the same with “This Man”, in a story based on a 2006 incident that took place in a New York psychiatric ward. The doctors there reported that female patients encountered a strange man with connected eyebrows in their dreams. Based on their descriptions, a composite sketch was created and published online. This led to reports from around the world of people seeing the same man in their dreams. The mysterious man became known as “THIS MAN” and was widely feared.
This Man is screening at Fantasia International Film Festival

The mutilated body of a young woman is discovered in a public area in a rural town, but it seems it is just one more in a series of similar crimes towards women. The two policemen investigating eventually find out that a single element is connecting the two victims: they all had drawn portraits of a sinister, monobrowed man seen in their dreams just before they died. As notions of the collective unconscious start becoming part of the narrative, we are also introduced to a happy couple, Hana and Yoshio, who have a little daughter. However, as “that man” continues to claim victims, danger begins to close in on Hana, whose close friends started becoming victims, while another girl, Rei Oda, also seems to play a role in the proceedings. Hana soon begins watching nightmares, which leads her to a veteran exorcist who explains the truth for what is happening, and mentions a rather bloody ritual that can counter evil. In the meantime, the victims start piling up all over Japan.
For starters, it is easy to say that the narrative here is messy and the pace problematic. For starters, there are too many characters and too many arcs that struggle to fit in the 88 minutes of the movie. We have the two policemen, then we have the couple, then we have Rei Oda, some of Hana’s friends, and eventually even a group of exorcists, not to mention “This Man”. Furthermore, as the borders between nightmare and reality start blurring, the timeline also becomes somewhat mixed, while the nation-wise impact of the serial crime starts mirroring Covid, in a way, though, that does not make much sense.
It seems that Amano wanted to follow a style much like Miike’s in “MPD Psycho”, but the fact that he only had such a brief duration in his hands did not help, with the majority of the arcs looking disconnected and suffocated. Expectedly, this also harms the characterization, despite the fact that some of the actors, particularly gravure idol and actress Arisa Deguchi as Hana, Kanji Tsuda, as the senior detective give truly memorable performances.
Furthermore, while there is a will to show some impressive scenes, an approach that occasionally works, as in the exorcisms for example, or some brutal scenes, the low-budget nature of the movie becomes apparent too, harming the overall sense the whole thing leaves even more. Particularly the rather bright to the point of foggy cinematography, definitely does not make sense, either narratively or aesthetically.
Lastly, the drama that encompasses the narrative could have been handled better, with other moments looking melodramatic and other completely off context, thus concluding the issues with the film.
Tomojiro Amano definitely had some good ideas, but in the end “This Man” emerges as overly ambitious, a film that would definitely benefit from some constraint in all levels, apart from the budget.