Synopsis
Between nuclear reactors and military curfews, 14-year-old Jani lives in a dystopian world oppressively devoid of empathy. Together, she and her slippery new friend Kiefer the talking catfish gear up to strike a surreal blow for freedom.
Hito
Director
Producers
Writer
Cinematography
Assistant Directors
Executive Producers
Production Design
Visual Effects
Composer
Sound
Studios
Country
Language
Alternative Titles
鯰魚人, 鲶鱼人
Genre
Releases by Date
Premiere
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Taiwan
Kaohsiung Film Festival
Theatrical
16 Feb 2023
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Germany
19 Nov 2023
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Philippines
Releases by Country
Germany
16 Feb 2023
- Theatrical 73rd Berlin International Film Festival
Philippines
19 Nov 2023
- Theatrical
Taiwan
10 Oct 2023
- Premiere Kaohsiung Film Festival
Popular reviews
More-
fish tank punk. politically charged to the core, but also very cute as coming-of-age tale. a fancy blood droplet.
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Maybe the real Hito was the friends we've made along the way.
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Hell yeah 💀🖕
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JAFF18 ( Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival 2023 ) -
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
For those wondering, this is it. That one Filipino short film we get every couple of years that transcends the short film collection they were screened in and win the hearts of the audience. Fragments of a calamity strewn with a poetically puerile attitude culminating in a massive middle finger painted with the blood off a carving on a policeman’s chest. You’ll find friendship in the unlikeliest of places, and who knows—maybe you can even topple a government with it and have time for takeout on the way home.
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You're my best friend!
Let the fishes be freed unto the sky, where their natural habitat breathes, for the opposition has been toppled.
Please rest now, my best friend!
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Our current cinematic landscape is one that speaks in video games, online dadaism, and sensory overload. If there's one thing very Filipino about this unique sci-fi thriller with a political bite is that there are no empty spaces.
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the lovechild of whammy alcazaren and jet leyco raised under the gestalt of iwai's swallowtail butterfly. raze the red lantern!! trust ur fishy homies!!
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now THIS is my jam
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holy shit that is so fun! Kapampangan representation joke!! ang galingg direk T^T
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84/100
94th Film in 2025
R12watching this with a packed (young) audience will always be a blast, and i'll always be grateful that we had an opportunity to screen this in campus. it will never not be funny to think that this dystopian gem started off of an idea by the director who simply wants to make a make a mascot/costume of a catfish.
while Hito depicts the Philippines with nuclear power plant (which was explained by the director that it was one of the failed projects of the past regime), mutant pets, and brainwashing, this was a more literal way to show how the history of a nation will always be fabricated by the ruling government. the narrative…
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It's like if David Lynch made a Filipino cyberpunk YouTube Poop, and my enjoyment just kept rising all throughout and climaxed with the catfish-man. Loved this one, and so did all the other theatregoers who saw it with me, if the applause was any indication.
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yea…these people get it
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