Rokuyon: Zenpen

This review applies to parts 1 and 2.

First of all I want to preface that I have not found any good English subtitles for this movie, so I had to watch it with pretty much incomprehensible ones. Thankfully there are a few summaries of the book online, so I was able to piece together what was going on. That definitely diminished the experience a bit though.

Despite that I have to say, while the movie is very well done in terms of cinematography and acting, there was just too much focus on internal politics and infighting between the police department and the press and way too little focus on the actual crime story. At least for my taste. There is almost no detective work, like looking for evidence, questioning witnesses or chasing the killer. The movie does have some historical relevancy, but you'd have to be a Japan insider in order to understand and appreciate that. I just found it a bit boring unfortunately.