Teki Cometh

Part of the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2026 - Knowing Me, Knowing You: The True Self in Japanese Cinema

Japanese title: 敵 (Teki)

Gisuke Watanabe is a retired French literature professor. Since his wife’s death, he has lived quietly alone in a traditional Japanese house. He leads a regular life and enjoys occasional company from former students, particularly Yasuko Takatsukasa, all the while considering ending his life before he runs out of money for his funeral.

One day, he receives a chilling message on his PC: “An enemy is coming from the north.” Despite his immediate dismissal of it as a hoax, an ominous feeling begins to grow within him. Soon, he starts experiencing haunting dreams that seem to expose his deepest sins...Is it all in his imagination?

Yasutaka Tsutsui, the original novelist, once called this "a novel that I thought was impossible to film.” However, seasoned director Daihachi Yoshida (Kiba: The Fangs of Fiction, JFTFP22; The Scythian Lamb, JFTFP19) successfully translates the book’s deep, unconscious karma and the self that cannot let go — even in later life — into this striking black-and-white contemporary film.