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Mind Game

Released Feb 16, 2018 1h 43m Adventure Comedy Mystery & Thriller TRAILER for List
100% Tomatometer 14 Reviews 92% Popcornmeter 2,500+ Ratings
Nishi travels to heaven and back.

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Mind Game

Critics Reviews

View All (14) Critics Reviews
Simon Abrams Village Voice Just relax, and let Yuasa take you wherever the hell he wants. Mar 2, 2018 Full Review Ronnie Scheib Variety With imaginative handling, this freewheeling juggernaut of a head-trip, its assorted visual treatments rendered in relative degrees of awkwardness and artfulness, could catch on with hip auds worldwide. Mar 27, 2009 Full Review David Jenkins Time Out A fantastically executed assemblage of animated flotsam punctuated with moments of dry humour and a heartbreaking final montage which gives the film its message - make every moment count. Aug 17, 2006 Full Review Seth Troyer PopMatters Watch Mind Game with your best friends. Eat lots of candy and drink too much coffee while it plays with your brain. Oct 3, 2023 Full Review Mariló Delgado Espinof The film is openly experimental and fearlessly mixes various types of animation (from a more "realistic" one to straight-up cartoon styles), allowing itself moments of delirious explorations... [Full review in Spanish] Rated: 3.5/5 Jul 3, 2023 Full Review Carson Timar ButteredPopcorn Even if the film fails to be extremely impactful, Mind Game is such a unique and memorable viewing experience that it has to be considered essential viewing for anyone who enjoys unique animation Rated: A- Aug 28, 2022 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (236) audience reviews
Nate J A beautiful and thought provoking anime film. It blew me away the first time I watched it. Highly recommended. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 07/18/24 Full Review Andrea watch this! please it was Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/15/23 Full Review Taylor L The main character escapes being held at gunpoint by clenching his buttcheeks around the barrel and tearing the gun away. That's a crucial plot point. It's tough to admit, but a lot of the movies that we watch (and a large proportion of the ones we enjoy) are not all that original. Reboots are all over the place, sure, but even 'new' films usually trade heavily on the influences of properties that came before. There's not much shame in it; familiarity is comfortable and movies are meant to be an enjoyable bit of escapism. But when something emerges out of nowhere that challenges those standards, you realize just how narrow your expectations for film are, and how rewarding it can be to test those boundaries. Mind Game gives you an opportunity to do exactly that. It's too free-form to be particularly character-driven, but it compensates by being full of unpredictable possibility. It's not just the narrative that's up for grabs, writer-director Masaaki Yuasa is incredibly free-form when it comes to his animation style, blending live action in with a variety of visual reskins to the same characters. Stylistic consistency is not only unnecessary, it flat-out wouldn't work with the story's exploration of the unpredictable, ever-changing, constantly ongoing nature of existence; it's a psychedelic trip but one worth sticking around for. One minor nitpick is the slight lull in pace in the middle of the film, which is really noticeable when you compare it to the frantic, almost manic beginning and ending scenes (apart from an exuberant, colorful, and wordless dance segment). But that's barely a concern when originality and kinetic energy are pumping through every pixel. (4.5/5) Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/14/23 Full Review Audience Member Its out of our normal bubble kind of space, takes you away of your confort zone and brings you through different reality's that you can actual feel and relate, the ending is just sublime Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/20/23 Full Review david l Mind Game is an authentic experiment where Masaaki Yuasa mixed many different styles and animation techniques in one singular package. The problem is that the animation is widely uneven. Whereas the background work and the world building were accomplished, the facial animation was unappealingly grotesque. The movie's mixing of different genres was uneasy while the plot and characterization were also quite weak. It's an artistic movie for sure, but one that is difficult to be riveted by. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member Incomparable in its dynamism, profundity and its inexhaustible power to entertain. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Mind Game

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Cast & Crew

Movie Info

Synopsis Nishi travels to heaven and back.
Director
Masaaki Yuasa
Producer
Eiko Tanaka
Screenwriter
Robin Nishi, Masaaki Yuasa
Distributor
Sony Pictures Classics
Production Co
Studio 4C, Asmik Ace Entertainment
Genre
Adventure, Comedy, Mystery & Thriller
Original Language
Japanese
Release Date (Theaters)
Feb 16, 2018, Limited
Rerelease Date (Theaters)
May 24, 2024
Release Date (Streaming)
Aug 28, 2018
Box Office (Gross USA)
$5.6K
Runtime
1h 43m
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