User Reviews

This film has been introduced as a psycho-suspense thriller. Murder of a husband and a wife leads to the arrest of a young actor Shibata, who not only admits to the crime but also volunteers for the capital punishment. His defender sets out to have Article 39 (Japanese criminal law which protects mentally challenged individuals from unreasonable penalty) applied to her client. Psychiatric test supports the defender's point, however, a psychoanalyst Ogawa who assisted the test thinks otherwise, and sets out to prove that Shibata is faking mental disorder.

Ogawa's investigation leads to a number of complex events and incidents which shed light on the motivation of the murder. We find out that the accused Shibata had been faking his identity. The real accused turns out to be another male individual named Kudoh who had his younger sister brutally murdered by a man, who was released under the protection of the very Article 39. This murderer was no other than the husband who was killed at the beginning of the film.

Kudoh's girlfriend Mikako takes an ambiguous part throughout. Certainly she is an accomplice who aided in faking Kudoh's identity, but not only so, the climax of the film implies that she actually masterminded Kudoh's conduct during the murder and the following investigation.

The film questions a person's responsibility towards his/her own conduct. Is it truly lawful to excuse individuals from his/her responsibility on the basis of one's insanity? In the first place, is law capable of detecting the line between sanity and insanity?

Now, this film without question has a lot of twists and turns which keep viewers excited. At the end, the plot hints that Mikako was the accomplice within Kudoh, but Kudoh himself says otherwise. He names Ogawa as his unexpected accomplice. This, at the end, tells us that the real message in this film has little to do with the stab against the murdered husband, but has to do with the stab against Article 39. Ogawa effectively helped Kudoh stab the article. The most thrilling bit is when we notice at the end that Kudoh after all was sane all the time.

This film, IMHO, has at least two major flaws. First, the plot which says that the wife who was brutally chopped to death had been killed not by Shibata-Kudoh, but by her own husband - this in effect says Shibata-Kudoh's murdering of the man took place by chance, and was not premeditated. That does not accord with the fact that he actually brought his own jack knife with him. Second flaw has to do with Mikako's existence. Is she a loyal girlfriend who would go as far as to live and sleep with a complete stranger for years just so that Kudoh would accomplish his aim? Or is she actually the mastermind behind Kudoh's conduct? The latter does not sound right, as there is no motivation or factor on her side to do so. However, if Mikako was just a loyal girlfriend who effectively helped Kudoh throughout, what the hell was her part in the final court scene? After all, it was not her, but Ogawa who was named as Kudoh's accomplice. Probably she was the very one who taught Kudoh all about psychoanalyzing, but this is just my guess. These two factors prevent me from voting 10.

Complex nature of the plot may misguide viewers unless we carefully follow the story throughout. The awkwardness of the characters in the film is not helpful either. Sub-plots such as the history behind Ogawa's family do not allow us to focus on the mainstream too. However, at the end this is an excellent film which keeps the viewers' mind busy. Keep yourselves focused, and you shall enjoy.

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS***

"The action of a person who has lost soundness of mind should not be punished" "The penalty for the actions of someone impaired health of mind and body should be reduced" From Article 39 of the Japanese criminal law.

-SPOILER WARNING-

Osamu Hatada and his wife are murdered apparently by actor Masaki Shibata. During a mental assessment a psychiatrist, played by Toru Emori, diagnoses him as having split personality, the other part of his personality having committed the crime. His assistant, Kafka Ogawa played by Kyoka Suzuki, thinks otherwise and decides to conduct her own investigation with the help of inspector Nagoshi, played by the excellent Ittoku Kishibe. She discovers that Osamu Hatada had himself killed a young girl when he was fifteen years old but was declared mentally incapacitated and released under the article 39. Masaki Shibata is then found to be the murdered girl's brother looking for revenge on the judicial system that let him down exposing its faults.

This is a rather complicated psychological thriller with multiple twists in the story. It works as a harsh criticism of the above-mentioned article 39. It also puts in doubt psychiatrists' accuracy and reliability when assessing criminals. As inspector Nagoshi tells Kafka the police arrest the criminals, justice sentence them and psychiatrists release them alleging mental disorders. The name Kafka is a clear metaphor of a woman lost in the bureaucratic world of law and its secret deals and to some extend a metaphor of the intricacy of the plot. She is aware of her mentor's incompetence, who uses the same standard psychiatric questionnaire for all the patients he assesses. Kafka decided to study psychiatry to try to understand why her father left her and her mother when he killed a man his wife had said didn't like. Kafka resolves both mysteries and comes to the conclusion that psychiatric proceedings (and the mastering of psychiatry as a whole) by accumulating data is not enough to understand and explain people's behaviour. A more subjective approach is also necessary. The film has some really chilly moments when Shibata transforms into his other personality and tries to strangle Kafka. Here there is an interesting use of extreme camera angles, fast motion, fast editing and other film techniques to convey this transformation. There is also a clever use of flashbacks of Shibata's past during the first part of the film. This, in a way sets the film in motion but, as Kafka progresses in her private own investigation, it starts to emerge that everybody, with the exception of inspector Nagoshi, has been tricked. I say clever because, in more run-of-the-mill films, flashbacks are used as a definitive and reliable proof, or to help to confirm, that something had happened in the past. Less satisfying is his flashbacks used at the end of the film during his trial, which are seen as unquestionably reliable. It could have been more interesting if these flashbacks were used more ambiguously, but by this time the film wants to reach a definitive and clear conclusion and especially wants to clear Shibata of any responsibility in the murders. It is clear that the film wants us to sympathise with Shibata's crusade against the legal system. Rather clumsily the films points out Shibata's long time companion as the murderer and the mastermind of the whole plot. We can hear her voice in Shibata's head telling him to kill Kafka. The flashbacks show that Hatada's wife was already dead when Shibata enters their apartment and that the murder of Hatada was in self-defence.

Notwithstanding the ending, this film is never boring even though some people might find a bit too intricate. It is not a film for psychiatrists though, as it would hurt their ego.