Exit 8

EXIT 8 🟡 8番出口 (2026)

When I travelled to Japan this past year, one thing was impossible to escape: EXIT 8.

It was everywhere…pop-ups, posters, people carrying merch. The film sold itself as inescapable, and honestly, it delivered. So now that it’s finally in Canada, there was no way I wasn’t going to check it out.

Part of what makes this film hit for me is personal. Kyoto train stations broke my brain, I’ve never felt more trapped trying to find an exit that should’ve been simple. EXIT 8 taps directly into that PTSD, but this movie tackles something far more complex than a tourist mismanaging Google Maps.

It turns a seemingly simple task of exiting a train station into a looping maze of haunting self-exploration.

We follow an ordinary commuter who gets a phone call that’s about to change his life. He steps off the train, heads for the nearest exit, and instead walks into a looping corridor. The only way forward is to spot subtle anomalies and navigate his way out.

It’s not life or death. It’s worse in a way, it’s limbo. A pause. A man on the edge of change, frozen in place.That’s where EXIT 8 is at its best. It takes something mundane and turns it into a quiet psychological maze, one that feels uncomfortably familiar if you’ve ever been stuck in your own life, knowing you need to move but unsure how. I connected with that immediately.

But the film walks a fine line. Its repetition is the point, but it can also work against it. If you’re not fully locked in, it’s easy to drift.

And where you watch it matters. In a theatre, with zero distractions, it becomes an experience, closer to an escape room than a traditional film. You’re scanning every frame, hunting for differences, actively participating. At home? That tension slips. The immersion breaks.

Ironically, the more engaging the “game” becomes, the more the emotional core fades into the background. The life-altering phone call, the reason for all of this, starts to feel secondary. That’s where it lost me a bit. I found myself more invested in solving the puzzle than in the man at the center of it. And I wish the film gave the audience enough time to sit longer with those anomalies, to let us uncover them for ourselves.

Still, I respect the hell out of what this movie is trying to do. It’s weird. It’s repetitive. And it’s unconventional.

EXIT 8 might not fully balance its ideas, but it creates enough tension and curiosity to pull you in, and just enough discomfort to make you think about why you might be stuck too. So, whether you’ve been lost in a Japanese train station or just stuck in your own routine, you’ll either lock into what this is doing, or feel like you’re going in circles alongside with it. 

Enjoy!

6.2/10 🍿🎥

Runtime: 1hr35mins

Where: In Theatres

The Richmond Reviewer Exit 8 Review - April 22nd, 2026.