The American hit movie Cloverfield opened here in Japan on Saturday. The movie has enjoyed great success not only in the United States, but around the world. What’s it all about? It’s simply the story of a small group of friends who try to survive an attack on New York City by a giant monster.

The plot revolves around a guy named Rob Hawkins who has a party thrown for him on the night before he’s set to leave for a job in Japan (no, not an eikaiwa job). During the party, something like an earthquake occurs and the partygoers head to the roof of the apartment building to scope out the city from an elevated vantage point. An explosion off in the distance catches their attention, and from there all hell breaks loose. For what happens next, you’ll just have to see for yourself.

The movie was shot with hand-held cameras, Blair Witch style. One of the main characters handles the camera throughout the movie and documents various incidents while running for his life. There were posted warnings in U.S. movie theaters about possible motion sickness due to shaky camera action, and Japan is not different; Just go a local major cinema and check out the promotion posters. The warnings are in Japanese, of course.

There’s a backstory to the movie that has been released through a viral marketing campaign like the one used for The Blair Witch Project. Indeed, it created such hype before the film’s release that many were skeptical about the movie actually living up to the hype.  However, the film has made many fans throughout the world. It will be interesting to see if it will make many fans out of the Japanese. Check out the links below for more details.

Official Cloverfield website - click here

Showtimes: 109 Cinemas website (Japanese) - click here

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