Transcending Dimensions (Frightfest 2025)

When did spirituality stop being cool? Our collective faith in faith seems to have taken a beating from the moment we stopped believing in religious middle-managers who got outed for the narcissists and manipulators they often were … but as a species and as individuals, does that cut us off from transcendence? That’s one of the questions inherent in Toshiaki Toyoda’s Transcending Dimensions – a slippery and provocative new drama that blends intense cynicism with a joyously open mind.

Toyoda sinks us into the world of shamanic rituals with a transfixing opening that sees lone monk Rosuke (Yosuke Kubozuka), on a quest with a conch. This is followed by an intensely focused session elsewhere with the sect leader Ajari (Toyoda regular Chihara Junia), whose tutelage takes the form of blessings and sacrifices. His big ask for his followers is to cut off one of their little fingers in order to make a vessel for their souls as preparation for the next life, which leaves unimpressed cynic Shinno (Ryuhei Matsuda), a little less than inspired. Shinno’s mission isn’t simply to expose Ajari as a fraud, as he’s also an assassin sent to kill the sect leader and find out where the boyfriend of his client Nonoka (Haruka Imou), has gone (who just so happens to be that wandering monk from the film’s prologue). Shinno thinks he’s in for an easy job until the magic peddled by this supposed con-man turns out to be very real, and his perception of reality gets blown apart even harder than the generic conventions of the film around him. 

Equal parts black comedy and inscrutable conspiracy thriller, it’s tough to get a handle on just what Transcending Dimensions is up to during its enigmatic first half as Toyoda keeps writing new storytelling charms to keep you on your toes. The mesmeric prologue feels like a digital slow-cinema take on Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain, which is quickly followed-up with a Takashi Miike-esque dip into the realms of the bawdy and the bonkers – complete with shock gore gags and, in a memorable one-scene appearance, a naked toilet-seat warmer. Toyoda’s loose formal control is exhilarating for a while, and with the talents of resourceful VFX geniuses Shinji Higuchi and Michael Arias from the Godzilla Minus One team to co-direct a trip into the infinite, this leads to a jaw-dropping centrepiece that takes us far beyond the realm of the known.

It’s an almost insurmountable gamble that the rest of the film cannot catch up to, especially when Toyoda forgets to have fun after a certain point. In exploring its central thesis about human transcendence and spiritual centring, the film leans on po-faced metaphysical discussions that deaden the pace and ground a narrative that had actual wings up until its midpoint. There are still touches of mania here and there (a brain-ripping death livens up a turgid final act), but there’s a distinct lack of adventurousness so Transcending Dimensions leads strongly with bold sequence after bold sequence, and then goes disappointingly stale as it closes.

The performances across the board are a sweet and salty delight, ranging from Junia’s outrageously camp megalomaniacal villain, to the brilliant deadpan Matsuda brings to his best roles. At the film’s centre is Kubozuka, whose shell-shocked expressions while working as a conduit for greater ideas than we could never understand, morph into something blanker and darker as his character grows more and more aware of the complicated fabric making up the universe, and maybe that’s what Toyoda’s playing with here. Maybe it’s all a galaxy-brained countering of expectation that offers answers we’re not prepared for, and whether you’ll go with his flow or get off his trip early is as uncertain as the answers to life itself.

SIMON’S ARCHIVE – TRANSCENDING DIMENSIONS