Home Movie Reviews ‘#Manhole’ Review: Confined Space Thriller Will Keep You Guessing Until the End | Berlinale 2023

While its many plot shifts might challenge the audience, those willing to embrace its bonkers energy are in for a good time.

Image via Gaga Corporation/J Storm Inc.

On the surface, Kazuyoshi Kumakiri’s #Manhole seems like yet another take on the formula that puts a helpless individual in a confined space, where they must use their wits to survive an impossible situation. However, while #Manhole does draw from this subgenre that includes gems such as Buried, Gerald’s Game, and Panic Room, Kumakiri’s thriller also taps into a glorious madness to add a series of unexpected twists to a seemingly simple concept.

#Manhole follows Shunsuke Kawamura (Yuto Nakajima), a young man who goes out to have some drinks with work colleagues in the evening before his marriage. Shunsuke is in a relationship with his company’s CEO’s daughter and is about to become a father, a dream life that awakens jealousy in some of his friends’ hearts. His lucky streak is interrupted when he decides to come back home from the bar to get a nice night of sleep before the biggest day of his life. Feeling the effects of having a few too many, Shunsuke walks alone in dark streets, stumbling on his own feet. That’s when he falls into an open manhole, badly injuring his leg on the wreckages of a broken ladder.

Trapped inside the hole, Shunsuke must fight against the odds with the help of the office supplies he always carries with him and his smartphone. To make things worse, the only person on Shunsuke’s contact list willing to pick up the phone in the middle of the night is Mai Kudo (Nao), a former girlfriend he dumped five years ago, about the time when he started to court the CEO’s daughter. When neither she nor the police can help Shunsuke, he turns to social media, hoping the swarm of online strangers can help him by putting their heads together to find the exit to each obstacle on Shunsuke’s way to freedom.

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#Manhole already stands apart from other confined escape thrillers by putting smartphone technology at the center of the plot. While thrillers and horror movies keep using the sudden lack of signal as a crutch to eliminate the complexities this brings to the table, this film is actually interested in exploring how dependent we are on our phones. Since there’s a piece of equipment in our pockets capable of doing almost everything, from telling us where we are on a map to taking pictures, we feel lost and confused when our smartphones stop working. That’s precisely the dire situation Shunsuke finds himself in, eventually leading him to seek help from the digital swarm. While the collective knowledge of the internet can hold any kind of answer, the anonymity and speed of social media also allow people to make a bad situation worse.

If #Manhole were just a confined space thriller with something to say about the dangers of social media, it would already be successful. More than that, director Kumakiri and writer Michitaka Okada also keep digging into the story to find new depths to Shunsuke’s survival tale. This creative choice turns #Manhole into a divisive thriller as the amount of enjoyment people can take out of it will be directly proportional to their willingness to accept the movie’s weirdness.

Since these surprises make the movie so entertaining, I’ll restrain from commenting on anything else the film does beyond its initial concept. Suffice to say, the movie will keep you guessing until the last possible second as hidden truths get revealed and surprising players get added to Shunsuke’s digital game for survival. By the time #Manhole’s script reveals some of its biggest secrets, the best thing is not to overthink the logic of the whole situation and just have fun.

The film subverts its initial concept multiple times during a short timeframe, ignoring logic for the sake of shock value. In addition, #Manhole might take the cake for the most longlasting smartphone battery in movies, which initially belonged to Bodies Bodies Bodies. Still, those willing to overcome its lack of coherence will be rewarded with a wacky story that only genre cinema can offer.

Rating: B-

#Manhole had its international premiere at 2023’s Berlin Film Festival.