REVIEW: Dear Stranger – Mariko’s Quietly Brutal Look at Love in Decay

Lun-Mei Gwei and Hidetoshi Nishijima unravel in a relationship on the edge in Dear Stranger.

Busan International Film Festival 2025 – World Cinema Section

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

While not a horror film, Dear Stranger, the latest from Japanese filmmaker Tetsuya Mariko, left us at HMU just as emotionally winded. Making its international premiere at the 2025 Busan International Film Festival, this slow-burn domestic drama explores the unraveling of a Japanese man and a Taiwanese American woman living in New York after their child goes missing.

Kenji Saiga (played by Hidetoshi Nishijima) is a quiet university professor with an unusual fixation—urban ruins and sites of cultural decay. His partner, Jane Yang (Lun-Mei Gwei), is a former puppeteer clinging to the remnants of a once-celebrated career. The two are already drifting apart when tragedy strikes: their young son is kidnapped, sending each of them deeper into their own psychological silos.

From there, Dear Stranger is less about the crime and more about what happens to love when grief exposes every lie, every half-truth, and every compromise made to preserve a hollow peace. It’s a film about emotional erosion—what builds up when couples stop speaking honestly and start performing for each other instead.

In one of the film’s most unexpected scenes, Mariko delivers what may be the funniest fight sequence of the year—a sudden burst of absurdity that underlines just how emotionally unhinged these characters have become. But just as quickly, the humor dissolves into one of the most painful and quietly devastating moments we’ve seen onscreen this year.

There’s no villain here, only the consequences of avoidance. The film makes clear that when people aren’t aligned in how they show love—or how they survive crisis—it becomes nearly impossible to move forward together. The film’s most powerful theme isn’t about protecting children from danger, but protecting adults from themselves—from the harm caused by dishonesty, denial, and emotional disconnection.

Both leads deliver candid, deeply felt performances, with Mariko giving them space to unravel with restraint. The New York backdrop is used with intention, never overwhelming the characters but always present—pressing in with its noise, its silence, its indifference. This isn’t a city where people go to connect. It’s where they go to hide from each other.

While the final stretch feels a bit predictable and the pacing may test the patience of some viewers, Dear Stranger is a compelling meditation on relationships in quiet crisis. It’s not here to entertain—it’s here to confront. And in that, it succeeds.

Final Score: 3 out of 5

Festival Screening Info:

• World Premiere: September 18 @ 9:00 PM KST – L Cinema Sum City 4

• Encore Screenings:

  – September 20 @ 1:30 PM – Com Community Media Center

  – September 24 @ 4:30 PM – CGV Sum City 6

More info: biff.kr