9 Souls

9 Souls (2003) is a Japanese crime drama you can watch online on iFILM. Directed by Toshiaki Toyoda, it opens with an escape: nine prisoners find a gap in their cell wall and slip out. Before the group goes its separate ways, a fellow inmate known as the Counterfeit King tells them he hid the "key of the universe" somewhere out there — money, or something that defies easy naming.

What follows is part road movie, part elegy. Ryuhei Matsuda and Yoshio Harada lead the ensemble through a Japan that refuses to behave like a backdrop. Dark comedy gives way to something closer to grief, without announcement. Stream 9 Souls online on iFILM.