‘Matched’ REVIEW: A Delightful Piece of Japanese Schlock
‘Matched’ REVIEW: A Delightful Piece of Japanese Schlock
POV shot of Naomi (Moemi Katayama) looking at the dating profile Rinka (Tao Tsuchiya) created for herself. It’s not great. Photo taken from the film’s official trailer
Let’s get this out of the way: You are not going to get a nuanced, thoughtful look at the dangers of online dating in Matched, the lone thriller included at this year’s Japanese Film Festival. It is also a flawed film by the genre’s standards, failing to create a compelling mystery from its intriguing premise. Yet its embrace of the sensational makes it hard to discount this fun, demented ride.
This is established in the gruesome tableau we see in the film’s opening scene: Two corpses are sitting at a dining table with their hands clasped together, their bodies bound by chains and their faces slashed with multiple Xs. They are the latest couple to die in the hands of a serial killer targeting married couples who met in the popular dating app Will Will. The police are left dumbfounded by these killings, as they haven’t come close to figuring out who the culprit is.
We soon meet Rinka (Tao Tsuchiya), a wedding planner whose love life is so dormant she doesn’t see herself getting married anytime soon. She continues to live with her father (Tetta Sugimoto) ever since her mother abandoned them back when she was young. It’s clear she was left traumatized by that event, and it has become a roadblock for her when she’s trying to form new connections.
Tomu (Daisuke Sakuma) coming out of the shadows. Photo taken from the film’s official trailer.
She begrudgingly decides to give online dating a try thanks to her friend and coworker Naomi (Moemi Katayama). She pushed her to sign up on Will Will, where she found a near-perfect match with a blond-haired man named Tomu (Daisuke Sakuma). Tomu is far from the ball of sunshine his profile picture suggests, as he is a sullen, creepy man who constantly monologues about his sad existence — he keeps repeating that he was born under an unlucky star — and pushes himself onto Rinka even if she’s not interested.
She becomes more entangled with WillWill once they begin collaborating with the wedding planning company she works for, in order to get rid of the bad press brought upon by the murders. This is where she meets Tsuyoshi (Nobuaki Kaneko), one of the programmers of the WillWill dating app with a penchant for old media.
Both of them become close enough that Rinka finds comfort in him and Tsuyoshi swears that she’ll do everything to protect her. It comes at the right time, with the murders beginning to involve Rinka in some way. Yet Tomu insists that Tsuyoshi cannot be trusted, even as he continues to cross Rinka’s boundaries while proclaiming that he is her protector.
Tsuyoshi (Nobuaki Kaneko) comforts Rinka (Tao Tsuchiya) with a hug. Photo taken from the film’s official trailer.
Watching Rinka deal with the dangers surrounding her is confounding. She isn’t alert nor smart enough to deal with any oncoming threats to her life and the people around her. She always ends up shocked or frustrated when Tomu interacts with her on the app and her private space, when she hasn’t done anything to keep him away. She didn’t block him from the app nor file a restraining order against him. She is also infuriatingly careless & trusting, going along with other people’s plans even with red flags so obvious you need to be colorblind to miss them.
All of this can be somewhat explained by her lingering trauma, with her desperation for human connection leading to bad decisions. Tao Tsuchiya hones in on this aspect of Rinka well, whose pain and isolation is already barely masked early on, but now has to contend with the terrors closing in on her. Once she finds out how she figures in on these murders, Tsuchiya revels in the rage and devastation Rinka has been carrying where she breaks down in one of the film’s agonizing moments. It’s a satisfying moment of catharsis the film is building onto buoyed by Tsuchiya’s performance.
That doesn’t excuse many of the film’s flaws, a lot of which can be pinned on its screenplay. Director Eiji Uchida co-wrote the script with Hideki Shishido, and they litter the film with flatly defined characters that are either exactly who they are or their complete opposite. That lack of nuance means you can easily guess who the killer is or what connects each of the characters. It also means what it has to say about online dating boils down to people aren’t exactly what they seem, which is the obvious motivating core of the genre it’s working with. It doesn’t help that a lot of the film’s critical plot points are explained by coincidences that ask the audience to take a huge leap of faith.
Rinka (Tao Tsuchiya) uncovers a horrifying secret. Photo taken from the film’s official trailer.
This is by design, as it becomes increasingly clear that the mystery is just an excuse to relish in equally shocking and absurd plot turns. Part of the fun is watching the film write itself into a corner, and then explain itself by finding the loosest of connections in order to set up the next ridiculous story beat. It benefits the film that these plot turns are rooted in its characters — as underwritten they may be — so they don’t feel quite as random; Rinka becomes an important compass as to where the story goes. It is still contrived, but Uchida never overplays his hand. He gives the film a sinister edge without exaggerating it to the point of silliness or overwhelming the film with menace, which makes it easier to pull the rug on its audience.
And it’s not like he is unaware of how ludicrous it all is. The film has a sly yet dark sense of humor, conveying each ridiculous plot point with its tongue planted deeply in its cheek. That tone is more apparent thanks to Sakuma’s performance as Tomu, who gives him just enough charisma and self-awareness to crack jokes despite being a pathetic stalker. Even his incessant monologues become a running gag that never overstays its welcome.
All of this adds up to an amusing, pulpy thriller determined to unleash its twisted, somewhat obvious story on the audience, sense and logic be damned. It pushes through with such glee and conviction it never loses sight of what makes it entertaining until the very end, where the film gives one final wink to the audience. Matched may not be for everyone, but those who find themselves attracted to it will see it for what it is: a glossy, delightful piece of Japanese schlock.
Matched is screening in theaters as part of the Japanese Film Festival 2025, which is running from January 31 - March 2, 2025.
