Annual Top Films Lists

Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2018: #77. Takashi Miike’s Laplace’s Witch

Published on January 2, 2018

Laplace’s Witch

Any annual list wouldn’t be complete without a mention of Japan’s most prolific contemporary auteur, Takashi Miike, whose one-hundredth film Blade of the Immortal was released in theaters this past October. The perennial fixture will be back in 2018 with Laplace’s Witch, a mystery thriller about an environmentalist who’s brought in by police to determine if the deaths of two people due to hydrogen sulfate poisoning was accidental or not. Of course, something strange is afoot when a mysterious woman who was present at both potential crime sites…and then she rightly predicts a third incident…

Release Date/Prediction: It’s difficult to tell where Miike’s projects will land. This year’s Blade of the Immortal premiered out-of-competition at Cannes, and Miike has been programmed two times in the competition (2011’s Hara-kiri: Death of a Samurai, and 2013’s Shield of Straw – (review)). Venice has also premiered two Miike titles in comp, 2007’s Sukiyaki Western Django and 2010’s 13 Assassins. However, it would seem Laplace’s Witch, which has been announced as opening in Japan during Golden Week this coming spring will most likely premiere at a smaller genre fest in North America in the coming year. The teaser trailer was released in November.

Nicholas Bell

Los Angeles based Nicholas Bell is IONCINEMA.com's Chief Film Critic and covers film festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and TIFF. He is part of the critic groups on Rotten Tomatoes, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and GALECA. His top 3 for 2021: France (Bruno Dumont), Passing (Rebecca Hall) and Nightmare Alley (Guillermo Del Toro). He was a jury member at the 2019 Cleveland International Film Festival.