4 Star

An Honourable Man Crossed.

Toy Robot Video brings us the restoration of highest-grossing Japanese film of all time based on box office ticket sales. Based on a novel of the same name by Juko Nishimura, this adaption is co-written and directed by Jun’ya Satō (GOLGO 13, THE BULLET TRAIN [SHINKANSEN DAIBAKUHA]) who brings us a crime drama that will have you on the edge of your seat for the full one-hundred-and-fifty-one minutes. A true classic crime drama, and deserves to be on your crime shelf.

The busy streets of Shinjuku, Tokyo at three in the afternoon on October the tenth, a frantic woman runs up to two police men claiming that she has been robbed and asualted, and she has seen the perpertrator. She leads them through the throng till they find a guy on a public phone, and she points her finger accusing him of the crime. The man is Morioka  (Ken Takakura, PRISON WALLS: ABASHIRI PRISON I-III, Wolves, Pigs and Men) who is arrested and the detective in charge of this case is Detective Yamura (Yoshio Harada, Onibi, It’s Easier Than Kissing) who looks at the crime that she was robbed and assualted at two in the morning. There was a robbery an hour earlier, so the victim is brought in to look at a line up, he picks out Morioka. This leads Yamura to take Morioka to his home, where they find all the things that have been stolen.

The cards are stacked against this Prosecuter, and at an opertune moment he manages to escape out of the high bedroom window. This makes him look very guilty. He is on the run with a very determined detective on his tail, but our prosecuter is more determined to to prove his innocence, at any cost.

It gets more complicated when he saves the daughter of the man running for govenor. This a complex story with many twists and turns that will have you gripped, as Yamura tries to follow the time line while the bodies start to pile up.

A gripping watch.

 

 

 

 

 

Manhint is available on Blu-ray

 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

NEW Audio commentary by Jasper Sharp and Amber T.
NEW Man on the Run, Japanese film specialist Mark Schilling on Manhunt
NEW An Unusual Director, a discussion of the film and its production by Junya Sato biographers Masaaki Nomura and Tatsuya Masuto
NEW Scaling The (Great) Wall to Freedom, a text essay by James Marsh
NEW Believing in Ken Takakura, a text essay by Earl Jackson
Stills Gallery
Original Theatrical Trailer