Director: Ryūsuke Hamaguchi
Snow, wood, and the sound of water carry most of the first act of Evil Does Not Exist, Ryūsuke Hamaguchi's 2023 drama set in a small village outside Tokyo. It is a film that trusts silence and routine before it ever raises its voice about what a community is willing to fight for.
What is Evil Does Not Exist about?
Takumi lives a quiet, self-sufficient life in Mizubiki Village with his young daughter Hana, splitting wood, hauling water, and knowing the forest well enough to read its smallest changes. That routine is interrupted when a company from the city arrives to pitch a glamping site meant to give urban residents an easy weekend escape into nature, without much thought for how the runoff, the roads, or the wildlife around Takumi's home will absorb the change. What starts as a town-hall dispute over paperwork slowly turns into a study of two incompatible ideas about what nature is actually for.
Cast & crew
Hitoshi Omika, in his first lead role, plays Takumi with a stillness that lets the character's competence speak louder than dialogue, while young Ryo Nishikawa gives Hana an unforced, watchful presence. Ryuji Kosaka and Ayaka Shibutani play the company representatives sent to sell the village on its own disruption, and their scenes carry a discomfort that never tips into caricature. Hamaguchi, working again with regular collaborators, keeps performances understated so the landscape itself can carry as much weight as any actor.
Context & significance
Evil Does Not Exist began as material for a live-scored film project with composer Eiko Ishibashi before growing into a standalone feature, which explains its patient, almost musical sense of pacing. It premiered in 2023 to strong festival reception and continued Hamaguchi's run of films examining how ordinary people navigate compromise, consent, and the limits of politeness. Rather than casting the developers as simple villains, the film lets its central conflict, land versus livelihood, unfold with an ambiguity that carries into its final, startling minutes.
Where & how to watch
Evil Does Not Exist is available on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Farsi subtitles, making its quiet, dialogue-driven scenes easy to follow for Farsi-speaking viewers. The page itself is free to read, and watching the film only requires logging into a K-Time account, on a service built around Persian-language streaming for the diaspora.