Lumberjack the Monster is a recent 2023 film directed by Takashi Miike (If you’re unfamiliar with Takashi Miike, he has a long body of works, but is best known for Audition, Ichi the Killer, and 13 Assassins. All very-much worth the watch), starring Kazuya Kamenashi, Nanao, and Riho Yoshioka. This film takes place in modern day Japan and follows Kamenashi’s character Akira, a lawyer with psychopathic tendencies as a result of a neuro-chip embedded in his brain from childhood as he has several run-ins with a serial killer going after other man-made psychopaths.

The killer in this film dresses up as a lumberjack monster from an unfortunately fictional children’s book also titled Lumberjack the Monster. Throughout the film the children’s book is read from and its dark essence reminds me quite a bit of the Grimm brother’s fairy tales.

It’s a fairly entertaining story and both well shot and acted. It doesn’t necessarily stand out among his other works, but honestly you can expect any Takashi Miike film to be entertaining and worth the watch. I’m landing at 7 stars, if you’re looking for something to watch check it out on Netflix. Not sure if this actually counts as science fiction since we do have a sort of technology similar to brain microchipping (Neuralink), though that’s still in development and to my understanding not looking at controlling emotional processing of individuals, so I’m tagging science fiction.