A masked serial killer gets more than they bargained for when they target high-flying lawyer Akira Ninomiya (Kazuya Kamenashi). The attorney may look like a soulless bloodsucker in an expensive suit, but get this — he’s actually a murderous psychopath!
“I’m gonna kill that freak,” Akira vows, after first encountering his axe-wielding antagonist in a parking lot. He means it, too: We’ve already seen him dispatch a car-crash victim with a piece of broken glass, unleashing a geyser of blood that signals the schlock credentials of Takashi Miike’s “Lumberjack the Monster.”
This adaptation of Mayusuke Kurai’s 2019 novel promises a supervillain showdown to rival “Sadako vs. Kayako” or Elon Musk’s cage fight with Mark Zuckerberg. But after an energetic opening act, the movie seems to decide that what its audience really wants is talking — lots and lots of talking.