Metacritic reviews

Striking a complex tone of tragedy and uplift at the same time, Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter both celebrates the escapist power of personal fantasies and bears witness to their dangerous extremes. It's the rare case of a story that's inspirational and devastating at once.

The genius of Kikuchi’s performance is that – by the end – her slow descent into mania humanizes Kumiko precisely when it would have been so easy to reduce her into caricature.

At every turn, we can sense what’s going on behind Kumiko’s doleful, downcast eyes; Kikuchi pulls us deeply into her world.

Kumiko The Treasure Hunter is a striking film, a bizarre joy and a beautiful delight.

Is Kumiko simply naive, or is she mentally ill? The film’s perfect ending doesn’t try to solve that riddle, but it will make you feel as if you’ve just seen something hypnotically original.

Treading the fine line between truth and fiction, Kumiko is more than just a homage to the Cohen brothers.

Kikuchi manages to make Kumiko interesting company no matter how far the character recedes into herself, using subtly expressive body language that would have been at home in silent movies to create a very strange self-imposed social outcast.

The result is a fascinating – at times illuminating – tightrope act, but rarely an enjoyable one: for all its luminous outsider’s-eye photography and painstaking, perfectly pitched performances, both the film and its shivering heroine prove difficult to warm to.

Rinko Kikuchi's superb core performance and some striking photography stand out in the latest feature from the Zellner Brothers.

Strange as it sounds – and is – Kumiko comprises a lingering display of empathy for its heroine, marching stridently on through her own peculiar headspace.