FILM

Japan 2010 140 mins Subtitles Dir: Sang-Il Lee Starring: Eri Fukatsu, Satoshi Tsumabuki, Hikari Mitsushima, Misaki Okada, Kirin Kiki, Akira Emoto

Adapted from a popular state-of-the-nation novel by Suichi Yoshida, Sang-Il Lee's epic drama touches on plenty of Important Themes and incorporates a variety of genres, but proves rather too sprawling for its own good. Shorn of 30 minutes and a couple of ill-developed sub-plots (the one about an old biddy being bullied out of her life savings for 'Chinese medicine' being a prime example), its strengths would have been brought into sharper focus.

The opening is pure whodunit. Young Yoshino (Mitsushima) is still finding her feet outside the family nest as an insurance saleswoman, helped by her doting barber dad (Emoto). She boasts to her friends that she's going out with rich college student Masuo (Okada), but is actually in a long-distance relationship with surly, withdrawn loner Yuichi (Tsumabuki), whom she met on a dating website. When her strangled body is found on a remote road, devastating her parents, suspicion naturally falls on Masuo, who goes into hiding. Yuichi, meanwhile, moves on to desperately lonely shopgirl Mitusyo (Fukatsu), callously using her for sex and attempting to dump her until he learns that the cops are after him too.

The question of who murdered Yoshino is resolved fairly early on and the film mutates into a lovers-on-the-lam/doomed romance flick, while revealing more about the principal characters in flashback. This serves to muddy the waters further, since no one is quite as they first appear and responsibility for Yoshino's death proves more complex than the question of who choked the life out of her. Despite being a latecomer to the story, Eri Fukatsu steals it with a truly heartbreaking performance. Shame, then, that the digressions dissipate its impact. (Robin Askew)  

Website www.akunin.jp

Opens: August 26

Copyright Robin Askew 2011