The Third Murder is Koreeda Hirokazu's latest movie after the ho-hum before the storm. Yakusho Koji plays an ex-convict who in the beginning we see commit his third murder killing his former employer and Fukuyama Masaharu plays the lawyer who defends Yakusho Koji.
My no.1 problem with this movie is that Fukuyama Masaharu was once in this very good movie called Suspect X The Third Murder feels like a much less compelling version of Suspect X.
That's because its got a much slower pace which is typical of Koreeda movies but also that he is less concerned with the mystery but more with criticising the justice system. He asks a lot of questions such as are there people who should never have been born or why it is worse in the eyes of the law to kill for money than a grudge?
Ultimately, The Third Murder is a movie that asks way too many questions without arriving at some sort of an answer to the detriment of the narrative and makes it an ultimately forgettable movie. I can't believe The Third Murder swept all the awards at the 41st Japan Academy Awards. 2017 must have been a horrible year for jmovies. Meh.
Edit: Gukoroku was released in Feb 2017 and it wasn't nominated for any award? WTF? Japan Academy awards are full of crap.
Did you watch 22nenme no Kokuhaku? I think it's pretty good compared to this one and should've win an award along with Gukoroku :/
ReplyDelete@Anon : Yes, I have watched 22nenme no Kokuhaku and The Third Murder makes it look like A Living Promise. Disagree on whether it should be award wining though.
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