Burning (2018)

Chang-Dong’s anti-thriller (no thriller is so placid as this on the surface, and yet the premise is pure Hitchcock) achieves something special here: finding an original angle on Murakami’s understated tale of faithless introversion while remaining deeply compelling through the 148 minute runtime. I wouldn’t describe Burning as urgent in the least, yet I must admit that I can’t think of a single unnecessary minute. If a good movie is still as Howard Hawks said “three great scenes and no bad ones”, this is certainly a good movie. More importantly it properly abides by Murakami’s narrative principle of never revealing for certain what happened or why, which is the real thrill here.