Rage

A couple is murdered in a house in Tokyo and the killer writes the word rage on the wall in blood. A year later he has not been found, and it is said he may have altered his face. Around the same time three strangers with no known history appear in three parts of the country: a man in Tokyo, a labourer in a fishing town in Chiba, a drifter on an island in Okinawa. The people who begin to love them all end up asking the same question. Sang-il Lee directs, from a novel by Shuichi Yoshida. Lee had previously adapted the same author's Villain. The cast is large: Ken Watanabe, Ken'ichi Matsuyama, Satoshi Tsumabuki, Aoi Miyazaki, Suzu Hirose, Mirai Moriyama and Gou Ayano. Ryuichi Sakamoto wrote the score. Solving the murder is not the point. All three strands ask one question in different forms: what happens the moment you stop trusting the person you love. Even when the killer is revealed the film does not offer it as a resolution, because the damage was done by the suspicion. The Okinawa strand also takes in the American military presence on the island and the position of the local population, which mainstream Japanese cinema does not often touch. At the Japan Academy Awards Tsumabuki won supporting actor and Suzu Hirose won newcomer. Who it is for: viewers who like multi stranded Japanese drama and crime turned into an emotional test. Who it is not for: it runs two and a half hours and moves constantly between three stories. If you want one line to follow, it will tire you.