the village 2023 movie review

Why the Ending of M. Night Shymalan’s 'The Village' Is Actually Great

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By the time M. Night Shyamalan released The Village , he’d been fully anointed by Hollywood — the next Hitchcock, the next Spielberg, a skillful manipulator of audiences and the great savior of mainstream thrills. Of course, with the back to back success of The Sixth Sense , Unbreakable , and Signs , he’d also attracted a mild backlash as viewers became acclimated to the tricks he used to tell his engrossing stories, twists, and surprises that are part of any filmmaker’s arsenal, but when employed repeatedly, start to seem like crutches or shortcuts. And when his sixth film (and fourth riding this particular wave of success) arrived in theaters, moviegoers and critics were already poised and prepared to figure out the secrets it possessed, whether or not there actually were any being kept from them.

Unfairly maligned at the time, its story about an isolated Pennsylvania community menaced by mysterious beasts rankled audiences because it seemed to fold one twist on top of another. Now available on Movies Anywhere and eligible for users to send a Screen Pass *, it’s easier to see the film without the inherited skepticism engendered by its predecessors: after 16 years, The Village has endured not just as a great M. Night Shyamalan story, but one of his best, not because each new detail about these characters and their world comes as a surprise, but because the filmmaker uses them to flesh out his vision, to offer new perspective, and most of all to anchor, fulfill, and deepen the ideas and emotions that make those details seem so surprising.

That said, there are twists; it’s just that nobody paid attention to the real ones. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix as Lucius Hunt, a young man raised in the small town of Covington who appeals to his elders for permission to visit neighboring cities for medicine that might save lives and alleviate pain. They forbid his expedition not just because these cities are full of crime, violence, and poverty, but also because outside the boundaries of the town, mysterious creatures lurk in the woods, waiting to prey on its people. In the meantime, he develops a quiet infatuation for Ivy Walker ( Bryce Dallas Howard ), a headstrong and adventuresome blind girl who cares for the children of the village, as well as a developmentally-disabled young man named Noah ( Adrien Brody ).

When Lucius is injured after proposing for Ivy’s hand in marriage, Ivy asks her father Edward ( William Hurt ), the town leader, for permission to make the same journey that Lucius wanted to undertake — only this time, to save her fiancée. Like Alfred Hitchcock’s change of perspective in Psycho from Marion Crane ( Janet Leigh ) to her sister Lila ( Vera Miles ), the film shifts to follow Ivy as she embarks on this dangerous trip, and faces the creatures that she and her fellow townspeople were warned about. Meanwhile, Shyamalan begins slowly peeling back the layers of his plot, offering increasing clarity about different elements of the film to provide the audience with a fuller picture.

Specifically: (1) the audience learns that the beasts living outside the woods are a fiction created by the elders to keep the children and their families from trying to leave; and (2) the village exists not in the 19th century as its fashion, architecture, and culture suggest, but in modern-day Pennsylvania, inside a wildlife preserve where it’s protected from modernity and the dangers that the elders built it to escape. Shyamalan’s patience and skill in revealing these details is not a trick, but a way to give the characters’ actions increased meaning. The elders founded the town to escape from their own grief after each of them experienced a painful act of victimization or violence, suffering unimaginable loss, and revealing this fact after its integrity is tested by a sudden act of violence against young Lucius amplifies the emotional weight of Ivy’s journey for medicine. Whether she will succeed makes the difference between this next generation of town leaders surviving and literally dying; but also the importance of her venturing outside without revealing the secrets of the village — or discovering too many of the realities of the outside world — makes her actions pure and powerful.

Admittedly, Shyamalan’s choice to maintain the possibility that the creatures are real, even after Edward reveals that they’ve been fabricated (“based on local legends”), is a sneaky little twist of the knife for viewers wanting Ivy to complete her mission safely. But the choice to go on that journey anyway, and then to fight what she comes to believe is a real creature, brings into vivid focus her love for Lucius and the importance of preserving the mythic foundations of the village over its tragic realities. And then, the revelation that troubled Noah has increasingly disrupted the elders’ best-laid plans to protect Covington’s borders, and subsequently followed Ivy into the woods, brings every detail from Shyamalan’s story detail together — a complex logic but one that works emotionally because we’ve been adequately swept along by the momentum of the young couple’s urgent romance.

If you watched each new story by Shyamalan from this period unfold in real-time, after four films in just over five years — seeing not only the movies themselves, but the wave of hype accompanying their release, and the swirl of commentary and speculation that followed — then it’s easy to have reached a point of fatigue or skepticism that seemingly employed a similar structure to weave their magic. But on its own, this film lives and breathes more fully as a story and a next step in his filmmaking evolution. It displays a mastery of storytelling, and increasing maturity in how to deploy the twists or surprises that people call his signature. Continuing to move forward from the explosive heights of The Sixth Sense , The Village truly creates the same kind of cinematic alchemy as his breakthrough, but where that film subverted expectations, this one expands them, showing us that his greatest trick was generating great ideas, and then making audiences care about the journey he takes while exploring them.

There’s no better time than now to revisit The Village on Movies Anywhere and send a Screen Pass to someone else who would love to watch it again too.

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The Village – Netflix Review (3/5)

Posted by Karina "ScreamQueen" Adelgaard | Jun 16, 2023 | 3 minutes

THE VILLAGE on Netflix is a new Japanese thriller drama. It’s slow-burn and heartbreaking, but also very brutal. With a runtime of two hours, it’s bound to be too slow for many. Read our full The Village  movie review here!

THE VILLAGE is a new Netflix addition from Japan. It’s labeled as a “drama” on IMDB where the title is also simply “Village”. However, the actual plot and genre elements are much closer to crime and thriller.

The pacing, which is very slow-burn, probably resulted in this being called a drama. While it’s nowhere as bloody and violent as the Japanese crime, thriller, horror hybrid series Gannibal (on Hulu) , a certain vibe runs through both stories.

Continue reading our The Village  movie review below. Find it on Netflix from June 16, 2023.

The horrors of bullying

On Netflix,  The Village  is called a thriller and has a 16+ rating and a violence warning. That warning could also include bullying, as the violence directly connects with brutal adult bullying.

We meet Yu Katayama (Ryûsei Yokohama) as the main character. He’s a young man living in a remote but beautiful village. This village, Kamonmura, is small and it seems almost impossible to escape from it. At least for Yu.

He has lived in Kamonmura forever, and his past (or rather that of his family) is keeping him trapped there. Both in the village and his past. It’s also what results in him being desperately bullied and beaten daily.

Yu Katayama really is a shell of a person when  The Village  begins.

The power of love

What a difference love can make in the life of someone who feels both trapped and lost. That’s what we get to witness firsthand when someone from Yu’s past shows up and shows him what life can be.

Also, it should be noted that the mysterious events of his past are actually shown in the opening scene. However, more details come later, which is part of the mystery.

In any case, Yu is working at a garbage disposal facility in the village. A fairly new addition to the area and one that ruins the otherwise beautiful nature.

Having lived without any shred of hope in his life, the change happens when his old friend returns from Tokyo. Her name is Misaki Nakai and she was a childhood friend of Yu. In her mind, his past doesn’t define him and that gives him the new chance he never expected.

Watch  The Village  on Netflix now!

Michihito Fujii is the writer and director of  The Village  and he also worked with Ryûsei Yokohama in his Netflix series The Journalist . Experiencing him in the lead role of this Japanese movie on Netflix, it’s easy to see why he was cast.

Watching Ryûsei Yokohama portray Yu as he evolves is absolutely breathtaking. If you had shown me a picture of him from Yu’s first scene, when he’s hopeless and depressed, and then when he’s happy and positive, I wouldn’t have thought it was the same actor.

He really is what carries this entire story. Also, having some knowledge of the Japanese dance-drama theater “Noh” helps. It’s a masked performance where the performer becomes one with the mask. That’s grossly oversimplifying it, but hopefully, you get the gist.

Also, there is a very late end-credit scene in  The Village , so keep watching it on Netflix. Or just fast-forward to make sure you watch it all.

The Village is out on Netflix from June 16, 2023.

Director: Michihito Fujii Writer: Michihito Fujii Stars: Ryûsei Yokohama, Haru Kuroki, Shidô Nakamura, Arata Furuta, Wataru Ichinose, Hana Kino

In a once-scenic village now dominated by a vast trash disposal site, a young man yearns to break free from a cruel fate tying him to the very grounds.

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About The Author

Karina "ScreamQueen" Adelgaard

I write reviews and recaps on Heaven of Horror. And yes, it does happen that I find myself screaming, when watching a good horror movie. I love psychological horror, survival horror and kick-ass women. Also, I have a huge soft spot for a good horror-comedy. Oh yeah, and I absolutely HATE when animals are harmed in movies, so I will immediately think less of any movie, where animals are harmed for entertainment (even if the animals are just really good actors). Fortunately, horror doesn't use this nearly as much as comedy. And people assume horror lovers are the messed up ones. Go figure!

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The Village (2023)

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Bullying this man while your village is turning into a landfill is...a choice

What it's about

Yu Katayama lives in a remote village with a garbage disposal business that's slowly turning into a landfill. When his childhood friend Misaki Nakai returns to the village, she encourages Yu to make a better life for himself despite his mother's gambling and the village ostracizing him. The Village is a slow-burning film interested in Yu's struggles as an outcast and in discussing the takeover of small villages for capitalistic industrial motives. The film is shot beautifully with dark, brooding visuals and lingering shots of Yu's quiet intensity throughout the film. Unfortunately, secondary characters are not fully developed outside of their interactions with Yu, causing the film to feel flat outside of pivotal moments. An evocative idea with parts more memorable than the whole.

What stands out

The film begins with the striking traditional dance-drama performance, Noh. The crescendo of tension, music, and a fire that grows wild creates a trance that dominates the screen. Yu's connection to the tradition strikes an emotional chord that isn't replicated again in the rest of the 120-minute runtime. Even though his change for the better includes him finding solace in Noh, it never recaptures the magic of the opening. When another rendition of the performance happens later (although brief), the film manages to marry his emotional turmoil and the necessity to preserve endangered cultural assets, showing a sliver of what the rest of the film could've been.

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‘The Village’: Backwater hometown hero plot smells off

Japanese films set in the countryside sometimes portray folks out in the boonies as more pure-hearted, if less sophisticated, than city slickers. However, provincial communities are more commonly depicted as miniature dystopias where the narrow-minded reign and young people with any ambition feel compelled to leave. Only the failures among them return.

It also symbolizes the film’s simplistic good-versus-evil melodrama, replete with bad guys who might as well be twirling mustaches as they cackle. Those expecting the pointed political commentary of “ The Journalist ,” Fujii’s 2019 true-story drama that won armloads of awards, will leave disappointed.

In “The Village” he paints sloppily with a broad brush, creating head-scratching plot turns and character reveals, which lead to a violent climax that feels hackneyed and contrived.

His protagonist is Yu Katayama (Ryusei Yokohama), a laborer at the recycling plant who lives with his pachinko-addicted, loan-shark-indebted mother (Naomi Nishida). A quiet type with a permanent hangdog expression, Yu is bullied at work, but can’t bring himself to fight back. He is also paying off his mom’s debts to a hulking gangster (Tetta Sugimoto) and feels he can’t skip town and leave her to her fate.

Misaki Nakai (Haru Kuroki), a recent returnee from Tokyo, takes an interest in Yu, though he resents her persistence in trying to renew their acquaintance. As we see in flashbacks, they knew each other as kids, when they were junior stars of the village noh performances. Taking a job at the local city hall in the PR section, Misaki hatches a plan to promote the recycling plant as a tourist attraction, with Yu serving as guide.

Toru Ohashi (Wataru Ichinose), Yu’s thuggish co-worker and son to the corrupt village headsman (Arata Furuta), objects to making a pathetic loser like Yu the face of Kamon-mura to the outside world, and it’s not only because he can barely open his mouth. As the entire village knows, Yu is the son of a now-absent criminal who caused a local scandal years ago.

A determined type, Misaki both pushes through with her plan and takes Yu to her bed. His confidence restored, Yu proves to be a terrific guide: articulate, personable and, once cleaned up, eminently presentable. Tourists throng and a TV crew comes calling: Yu and Kamon are about to become famous. Meanwhile, a furious Toru plots Yu’s downfall and Misaki’s seduction.

Playing Yu, Yokohama reveals the character’s inner pain, but can’t account for his miraculous transformation, which resembles Clark Kent becoming Superman — without the alien backstory. Also, the always superb Kuroki adds layers to Misaki that aren’t in the script, but a third-act reveal about her past comes completely out of left field.

Oddest of all, however, is the film’s conceit that, more than the village’s noh plays with all their color and mystery, visitors would flock to a sinister-looking plant overlooking a trash-strewn landfill. Have its not-as-clean-as-advertised fumes gone to their heads?

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The Village Review: Arya's badly-made horror thriller needs proper script, budget

Director milind rau's 'the village', starring arya, aadukalam naren and muthukumar, is a mix-mash of many tamil and hollywood films. the web series lacked new ideas, says our review..

Listen to Story

• 'The Village' is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
• The web series features Arya, Aadukalam Naren, Muthukumar and Arjun Chidambaram in lead roles.
• The horror thriller is directed by Milind Rau.

Release Date: 24 Nov, 2023

'The Village', which marks Arya's OTT debut, is a series adapted from a graphic novel of the same name. The horror thriller is about a ghost village and its haunting past. With its teaser and trailer, 'The Village', helmed by Milind Rau, piqued the interest of the audience. It hinted at the the series being a social commentary on nature conservation and superstitions. And the director promised a lot of gore as well. Did 'The Village' manage to fulfil the expectations? Let's find out!

Gautham (Arya), a doctor by profession, is married to Neha (Divya Pillai). They have a daughter named Maya (Baby Aazhiya) and a beagle named Hectic! During a road trip from Chennai to Thoothukudi, their car breaks down in a haunted village called Kattiyal. Meanwhile, there's Prakash (Arjun Chidambaram) who sends a mercenary group headed by Farhan (John Kokken) to get samples.

If you've seen a fair share of Tamil films, you might have predicted the storyline. And if you did, that's precisely how 'The Village' unfolds. The web series redundantly explores how industry and medical waste affect the lifestyle of a particular demography. You throw in all the clichéd scenes you could ever think of, you'd have it in the show. Coupled with poor screenplay and uninspiring dialogues, 'The Village' becomes a tedious watch.

When director Milind Rau shows us the forest of Kattiyal where Farhan and his team were asked to extract substances, you let out a chuckle. Because the forest looks like how 'Avatar' would look like if it was made on a shoestring budget. The trees are painted in neon colours! As promised, 'The Village' has a lot of gore. We get slashed intestines, bodies cut into halves, intestines laying on the floor, gory-looking men and what not. But, you do not feel scared or frown in disgust. After a point, they look more like cartoon characters.

The mercenary group led by Farhan is not that effective either. His team of cold-faced individuals doesn't inspire much hope. Similarly, the flashback options touch upon the topics of oppression, discrimination, corporates taking over villages and health hazards. These are all topics that were shown in countless Tamil films and it looks like there was no effort taken to add new ideas to the done-to-death story.

In terms of performance, Arya appears out of place in the series, particularly struggling with emotional scenes. It is the performances of Aadukalam Naren and Muthukumar, who played the roles of Shakthivel and Karunagam, which hold the show together. Arjun Chidambaram as a spoilt brat and a cunning businessman, delivers a decent performance.

The story of 'The Village' feels outdated and redundant. Throughout the six episodes, each spanning 35-45 minutes, there's never an urge to binge-watch it. The second half of the story is excessively long and lacks substance, despite its good intentions. If Milind Rau had focused more on the screenplay, 'The Village' might have become a worthwhile horror thriller.

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Where to watch

The village.

Directed by Michihito Fujii

All the glory of a man is nothing but a short dream.

In a once-scenic village now dominated by a vast trash disposal site, a young man yearns to break free from a cruel fate tying him to the very grounds.

Ryusei Yokohama Haru Kuroki Arata Furuta Shido Nakamura Wataru Ichinose Daiken Okudaira Sakuma Ryuto Tetta Sugimoto Naomi Nishida Hana Kino

Director Director

Michihito Fujii

Producers Producers

Ryo Yukizane Michiaki Tsunoda Ryu Nagai

Writer Writer

Casting casting.

Mai Sugiyama

Assistant Director Asst. Director

Executive producer exec. producer.

Mitsunobu Kawamura

Composer Composer

Taro Iwashiro

STAR SANDS KADOKAWA Lat-Lon L'espace Vision

Releases by Date

11 jun 2023, 21 apr 2023, 16 jun 2023, releases by country.

• Digital 16 Netflix
• Premiere Shanghai International Film Festival
• Theatrical PG12
• Digital R15+ Netflix
• Digital Netflix

Puerto Rico

• Digital R Netflix
• Digital M18 Netflix

South Korea

• Digital 15 Netflix

120 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Moresbi ★★★★

"Dreams are fleeting... Trully, everything is but an empty dream." (Keep this in mind through the movie.)

"There's no options. Not for me." (Enduring your "fate" isn't always easy.)

Just for context, and via online search, "Noh" is a major form of classical Japanese dance-drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Developed by Kan'ami and his son Zeami, it is the oldest major theatre art that is still regularly performed today.

"Village", IMO, is one of those movies where the "devil is in the details" or, in another way, requires your attention to detail to fully appreciate it (for example, notice the scene when Yu wakes up after being with Misaki or (the once outcast) Yu being the…

Review by threepenny ★

Nothing like a plodding two-hour movie to remind you of what a nightmare growing up in a small village might be, bullied and controlled by the corrupt headman and loan sharks, caught in a dreary cycle of abuse and debt. But ok, let's say you want to tell that tale, fine - anything new you'd like to add, movie? Anything at all? Nope. An hour worth of story filled with silent stares and conversational pauses that are not so much pregnant as vacant. They go for dramatic realism but at the same time create a fake looking CGI recycling plant that looms over the small village like it's a dystopian anime. Why was that even necessary? The only thing I…

Review by Jim Film ½

Was really looking forward to starting it too

Review by joshrowley ★★ 2

Review by Invincible Asia ★★½

Started off intriguing, but the intrigue made way for tedium and a specific kind of sexual assault I have seen more than once before in Japanese cinema and, as is ever the case, could have done without. Obviously also too long for what it boils down to.

Review by renellc ★½

Competently made and well shot, but offers nothing outside of that. A tremendous slog to get through, with characters so infuriating that even a toddler could make better decisions than them. Everything was extremely one dimensional and you could already guess from a mile away what was going to happen. Basic doesn't mean bad and complex doesn't mean good, but man oh man this film really need more time fleshing out literally everything because everything just came across as flat. Obvious character arcs, obvious antagonists, obvious story, the list goes on. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about this film whatsoever, it's just a big nothing burger that'll leave you dumber than when you came in.

Review by anglek ★★★

ขยะในหมู่บ้านนี้ กำจัดยังไงก็ไม่มีวันหมด

Review by marisjuana ★½

very pretty but also all over the place. the ending is anticlimactic to say the least. there are better ways to spend 2 hours of your life.

Review by PotatoCraft ★★★

The final shot, while being extremely simple, made me bump the score up to a 6/10 from a 5.

If there's anything that stood out to me in this movie besides that, it's that the acting is some of the most inconsistent I've seen in my life, in that the same actors/actresses show astonishing ranges in giving amazing performances in one scene, and then switching to fifth grade drama class the next, which was kinda fun to watch, honestly.

Other than that, a lot of decent elements mixed together with some inexplicably odd decisions here make for a strange movie experience. I feel like if I connected more with the characters or felt that the movie actually knew what it…

Review by maria ★★

Me, a person who rarely checks directors' names before watching anything, halfway through this: I bet it's the director of Day and Night .

And I feel exactly the same way about this film as I felt about that film, script and story wise. At least I am consistent. I did like the cinematography of Day... a bit more, though.

Review by jade ★★★★★

Ryusei Yokohama and Director Michihito Fujii tandem did it once again. I am in awe of this film. Everything from cinematography, to scoring and each character’s performance. 

This movie depicted that there’s only 2 ways you can survive in this harsh world, either you be a part of the garbage system which we call the “government” or work your hardest way just to get out of the lowest sector. Either way, it’s always the poor who will suffer.

There’s lots of things that can make a person evil. When you constantly depict them as someone who should be despised when they did nothing wrong pushes them to their boundaries and somehow be the person they expected him to be.

Review by shinji ★★½

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

the only things i liked were ryusei yokohama and killing old corrupt people

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The Village (2023) Movie Ending Explained: Who Kills Mr. Ohashi?

The Village ( Michihito Fujii, 2023) has at its heart a landfill that stands as a metaphor for the moral decay of the characters that populate the film. The villagers of Kamon-mura are not as bothered by the presence of a toxic landfill as they are by the presence of a certain Yuu Katayama ( Ryusei Yokohama). The perception towards Yuu is not so much about Yuu as it is about his father’s ‘misdeeds.’ However, are things really that black-and-white here in Kamon-mura?

Here, the plot of The Village is broken down, and the ending is explained just a bit to help get a better understanding of the film.

The Village (2023) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:

Yuu Katayama has been leading a stale life in the Kamon-mura village for years. The villagers are merciless towards him, and his workplace is, literally and figuratively, toxic. The once scenic village, Kamon-mura, is now home to a gigantic landfill, and a waste management plant sits atop the mountains. Yuu is a worker at the landfill, and his primary duty is to recycle the waste. He lives with his mother, whose addiction to gambling and drinking is a further cause of concern. 

The waste management plant is not as harmless as it pretends to be. Every night, Yuu and the other workers must clear the path so that bio-hazardous waste can be secretly dumped in the landfill. 

Misaki, Yuu’s old friend, returns to the village and starts working at the Public Relations wing of the plant. Meanwhile, Toru, Yuu’s manager, has his eyes on Misaki and gets increasingly jealous of their relationship. 

One day, Yuu’s mother creates a ruckus at a gaming parlor after losing all in a game. Kokichi, the policeman and a former resident of Kamon-mura advises Yuu to take care of his mother, his only surviving family member. Kokichi offers Yuu to hang out with him, and the two meet Misaki. Misaki and Kokichi perform an impromptu session of Noh, the traditional Japanese dance-drama. Kokichi then invites Yuu and Misaki to the Noh festival. While Misaki is excited to join the festival, despite being a performer once, Yuu has distanced himself from Noh. 

Kokichi goes back to his home where his mother and elder brother stay. Shusaku Ohashi, Kokichi’s brother, heads the Kamon-mura plant. It is revealed that Kokichi is not supportive of the idea of the landfill, and his departure from the village for good can probably be ascribed to the arrival of the plant. 

Misaki takes Yuu to the Noh festival. However, Yuu’s presence disgusts the villagers. Watching the Noh live, for Yuu, brings back the memory of the night Yuu’s father set himself and their house on fire. 

Misaki proposes the idea of excursions for elementary school students to make the factory look more family-friendly. She suggests Yuu be the tour guide as he had an affinity for public speaking in his childhood. Toru, who is jealous of Yuu being considered for such an aspirational role, insults Yuu, but Misaki convinces him to take up the role. 

The next day, the children arrive, and Yuu makes the tour a hit. Soon the tour gets featured on TV, making Yuu popular beyond the village. Although the villagers protested the decision to let Yuu get featured, the furor gets fizzled out eventually. When Yuu starts getting popular, Mr. Ohashi frees him from the night duty of dumping bio-hazardous waste in the landfill in order to remove all trails leading to him. 

One night, Toru arrives at Misaki’s place and tries to rape her. However, Yuu arrives just in time and fights intensely with him. The following day–the day of the TV interview– Yuu is seen arriving at the studio with an injured, swollen face. But his injuries are concealed using makeup, and he delivers yet another hit. Yuu’s TV show brings more tourists to Kamon-mura, and the public perception of Yuu starts changing for the better. 

One day, Keiichi, Misaki’s brother, uncovers the bio-hazardous wastes while hosing the landfill. Keiichi reports it to Kokichi, and the police raids the landfill at night. Toru, who is the landfill manager and Mr. Ohashi’s son, is nowhere to be seen. When Kokichi confronts his brother and lets him know about the progress in Toru’s case, the latter seems more bothered about the bio-hazardous waste scandal. 

Why is Yuu hated in his own village?

After the bio-hazard scandal of the plant comes out, Kokichi reveals that the plant has been the source of all that is wrong in the village. Kokichi says that the Kamon Environmental Centre will be successful in covering up the entire scandal like they had done ten years ago.  At the time of its inception, the plant met with huge protests. One of the protesters, Yuu’s father, was accused of killing an official. It is believed that, after the murder, he set fire to himself and his house. However, no proper investigation was initiated to find the real truth, and the case was closed. This is also the reason why Kokichi left the village. 

Therefore, the villagers’ antipathy towards Yuu is not for his own deeds but attributed to the swirling rumors around his dead father. 

What happened to Toru?

Toru’s body is found deep inside the layers of waste in the landfill. Yuu takes Keiichi for a ride and coaxes him to present himself as a false eyewitness. He asks Keiichi to convince the reporters that some unknown men picked up Toru due to his involvement in illegal activities. Keiichi is hesitant, but Yuu tries to convince him. Yuu, who is driving the car, gets distracted by the heated conversation and rams into a tree.  While Yuu comes out nearly unharmed, Keiichi loses consciousness. Misaki asks Yuu to continue to be Keiichi’s hero and prepares to leave for somewhere, but Yuu stops her. 

Back in the police station, Kokichi recovers Toru’s phone, where he finds the photos of Yuu dumping the hazardous material and the video of Toru molesting Misaki with the voice of Yuu shouting at him. Although these pieces of evidence lead Kokichi to Yuu, the truth is yet to reveal itself.

It is actually Misaki who killed Toru to save Yuu. Misaki was attempting to leave to disclose the truth about the real killer to the police. When Toru injures and impairs Yuu, Misaki strikes him from behind by plunging a scissor to his back. Toru dies, and they bury his body in the landfill. 

The Village (2023) Movie Ending Explained:

Who kills mr. ohashi.

In the end, Yuu arrives at Mr. Ohashi’s place to tell him something. Before Yuu begins his confession, Mr. Ohashi informs him that he is already aware of his involvement in Toru’s murder. However, Mr. Ohashi seems nonchalant. Instead, he embraces the news of Toru’s murder with a sense of relief. He argues that Toru had to be given cover-ups more often than not by him for his misdeeds. With the evidence gone, Mr. Ohashi believes that their own concocted narrative is the only way to save themselves now. 

Yuu, who is surprised by Mr. Ohashi’s remorselessness, broaches the topic of his father’s death and asks him if covering up his father’s death was this easy too. Mr. Ohashi, however, scoffs at Yuu and voices that sacrifices are necessary for the village. His words allude to a hidden truth– perhaps it is Mr. Ohashi who wrongfully framed Yuu’s father as a killer and set him on fire to give his murder the look of a suicide. When Mr. Ohashi suggests Yuu to frame Misaki for Toru’s murder, Yuu retaliates by killing him and setting his house on fire. The burning house engulfs Mr. Ohashi and his mother.

The film ends with Yuu walking away from the burning house, with Kokichi stopping him on his way. Kokichi’s bewildering expression suggests his helplessness in saving his family, akin to the one he experienced ten years ago when he failed to save Yuu’s father.

Read More: Kandahar (2023) Movie Ending, Explained: Do Tom and Mo Get Out in the End?

The village (2023) movie links: imdb , rotten tomatoes the village (2023) movie cast: arata furuta , wataru ichinose, hana kino genre: drama original language: japanese director:   michihito fujii writer:  michihito fujii runtime: 2h 0m production co:  star sands, where to watch the village, trending right now.

To fine-tune May Sarton's words-- the films we love are built into us. M.A. Film Studies, Jadavpur University (2022).

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‘The Village Next to Paradise' Review: A Somali Family Has Humble Dreams in Quietly Powerful Film

Dreams play a pivotal role in "The Village Next to Paradise." One of the three main characters in writer-director Mo Harawe's poignant debut, a pre-teen boy named Cigaal (Ahmed Mohamud Saleban), has a compulsion to share his dreams with anyone who's willing to listen. Cigaal longs for a land full of sweets, a place he sees in his sleep. The central threesome each have modest dreams: a small shop, a steady job and schooling. Life is hard in their part of Somalia, and they just want it to become a little easier.

It's not much to ask for, and the humble ambition of the story's characters reflects the filmmaker's steady hand and patient vision. Harawe's assured and confident debut, the first Somali feature ever selected for Cannes, draws on a small canvas but manages to wring authentic emotions and tell a complete narrative. A jack of all trades who can't find permanent employment, Mamargade (Ahmed Ali Farah) is struggling to make ends meet. He cares for a motherless young son, the aforementioned Cigaal. His sister Araweelo (Anab Ahmed Ibrahim) is trying to live on her own terms following a marriage that ended because of her infertility. Supporting one another even when they are not in agreement, these misfits have formed a makeshift small family, not unlike those seen in Kore-eda Hirokazu's "Shoplifters" and "Broker."

Languid in pace, "The Village Next to Paradise" takes its time to tell its uncomplicated story. Nothing much changes from scene to scene; life simply happens. Small decisions are made, the characters enjoy playful moments and the grind goes on. But the specter of death is ever present. First it exists on the margin, as loud noises from afar or a mention of survival training for possible drone strikes at the primary school, but little by little, it moves to the center of the frame and the narrative. Mamargade helps a woman bury her young daughter, and Cigaal's school closes, forcing him to find another one. The political situation in Somalia creeps into these characters' lives, as the disruption becomes all-encompassing and the fight for survival more urgent. 

Harawe starts the film with a news bulletin about a drone attack. Instead of setting the tone for what transpires, it's a rather jarring starting note. The slow and methodical rhythm in which the story unfolds has nothing in common with it. Harawe's writing is lean, the dialogue straightforward and to the point, and he should have trusted his sparse screenplay to carry the drama. His characters are not verbose, yet scenes when nothing much happens come to have potent resonance thereafter. There's audacity in such filmmaking, as Harawe forces the audience to succumb to a specific storytelling flow. As scenes stay on for just a little bit longer than we might expect, new meaning comes to light, whether in an actor's gaze or a character's viewpoint. A character might take a pause and then suddenly say something so profound it punctures the film and startles the audience.

So much can be read in Farah's expressions alone, and Harawe knows to center his face in the frame and let him carry the narrative. In one highly affecting scene, Mamargade tells the story of his marriage in a voice full of equal amounts love and sorrow. But it's Farah's downcast eyes and the stillness of his features that show both the intensity of his feelings and his acceptance of his fate. Saleban avoids the trap of the precious know-it-all so many young actors fall into. His performance matches Farah's in calm composure. Ibrahim gives Araweelo a quiet yet forceful disposition, playing her with unshakeable fortitude. This is a woman who wants to be heard and knows exactly what she wants, even when she's taken for granted by those around her. 

No wonder dreams have such a hold on these characters. When Mamargade feels trapped by his situation, his dreams take a fantastical turn and come with song and dance. Cigaal gets his moment when someone asks him to describe something he longed to do. Ever pragmatic, Araweelo never talks of her dreams. In building these characters' world - the fanciful, the childish and the realistic alike - Harawe makes a film that quietly seeps into the audience's consciousness and lingers.

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• Cast & crew

Aigeas Pallinis

• Episode aired Dec 11, 2023

Aigeas Pallinis' home ground is the closest - field to the famous beach of Pefkochori. This does not deter the football players of the team, who are all children raised in the village. Aigeas Pallinis' home ground is the closest - field to the famous beach of Pefkochori. This does not deter the football players of the team, who are all children raised in the village. Aigeas Pallinis' home ground is the closest - field to the famous beach of Pefkochori. This does not deter the football players of the team, who are all children raised in the village.

• Thanasis Nikolaou

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• December 11, 2023 (Greece)
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

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The Village: Season 1 Reviews

The efficiently performed show never lacks imagination, even if the budgets don’t quite match ambition.

Full Review | Feb 6, 2024

This leaves much to be desired in a possible second season, but for now, the high-tech gore gets the job done.

Unlike Kantara and Tumbbad, The Village is not able to become more than just a title about ghosts and monsters.

Corny and utterly contrived...

Watch The Village if you have the stomach for a no-holds-barred, squelchy, squirmy spectacle that frequently pushes the nausea factor to its extremities. Not a joy to behold but watchable enough.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Feb 6, 2024