Suspect X

This film made me an instant fan of the actor who played Suspect X-his name escaped me at first, but his performance left a strong impression. The real strength of this movie lies in its source material: a brilliantly crafted Keigo Higashino mystery. Many suspense novels are too intricate to adapt smoothly into film, leaving audiences lost, but this story relies on a relatively simple trick. Viewers can actually follow along and even solve it as they watch, which makes the suspense so engaging.

The human drama is also well handled. Higashino's works often focus heavily on family issues, but here that element is restrained, allowing the relationships between the culprit and the heroine, and between the culprit and the detective, to shine.

Higashino has written many outstanding works. With the right production and international push, they could become a catalyst for Japanese cinema to gain worldwide recognition. While Japan is often labeled an "anime nation" or "manga nation," popularity alone doesn't equal depth. True narrative depth lies in Japanese mystery fiction. Especially between 1980 and 2010, Japan produced many of the finest mysteries in the world. Yet, it seems Japanese film companies have no intention of using this strength to break onto the global stage-and that is truly unfortunate.

'Yougisha X no Kenshin' is battle of wits between the physicist "Galileo" Yukawa (Fukuyama Masaharu) and his university friend and genius mathematician Ishigami (Tsutsumi Shinichi). The first 10 minutes of this film was just like the TV dorama series, light comedy filled with physics jargon, but it soon turns into a completely different, stand-alone movie. This movie and Galileo dorama are both based on the same mystery novel series, but this movie was more of a suspense movie with a touch of human drama because it was very clear from beginning who the culprits were.

The movie was surprisingly well-directed for a dorama director. There were many epic, well-executed slow motion scenes, and somehow he completely removed dorama cheesiness for majority of the play time.

Fukuyama Masaharu and Shibasaki Kou's acting were sub-par, but the "supporting" actors Tsutsumi Shinichi and Matsuyuki Yasuko were INCREDIBLE. I have already seen couple of similar characters Tsutsumi played in his long dorama career, but I was surprised how perfect he was for this role and made me sympathize with his character even though he played a bad guy. Matsushima Yasuko was solid as usual, though she over-acted in couple of places. Still, she depicted her character well. Tsutsumi Shinichi and Matsushima Yasuko were credited with supporting actor/actress in this film, but they each got almost as much screen-time as Fukuyama Masaharu, and I don't think it can be disputed that those two were the de-facto leading actor and actress in this movie. Shibasaki Kou is one of my favorite actresses, but she was a non-factor in terms of both screen presence and acting quality.

Although I liked the comedy in the dorama series, I'm glad they changed the style for this movie. The plot involved very little physics and mathematics, but focused on the human side of the guest characters: What was the motivation for Suspect X's involvement? The meaning of the title "Devotion of Suspect X", devotion indeed. This is one of those movies that sinks in a while after the ending credits.

There is a metaphor I really liked in this film. "Is it harder to create a question no one can solve, or solve that unsolvable question?" This reminded me of the word origin "mujun" (contradiction) in Japanese, which writes "Spear-Shield" in kanji. It's an imported Chinese word derived from an ancient philosophical text where a salesman was selling a "spear that can break through any shields" and a "shield that can defend against any spear", but was dumbfounded when someone asked him what happens if he used the spear on the shield. A truly clever metaphor it is!

I really connected with Tsutsumi and Matsuyuki's characters, and although I didn't cry while watching this movie, I heard couple of other audience in the theater crying. 'Yougisha X' movie is a very serious and deep movie in contrast to the dorama, and I have enjoyed every moment of it.

I first saw this in 2010. Revisited it recently. Some movies indeed deserves a second viewing before being reviewed.

Suspect X is the first of several film adaptations of the novel The Devotion of Suspect X.

This is the Japanese version n has some amazing performances by the actors. I ain't aware of the names but really terrific performances.

I loved the opening scene where a physicist solves a crime via the explanation of physics.

The plot - Yasuko Hanaoka, a recently divorced, single mother owns a restaurant and she has a regular customer, Tetsuya Ishigami, her next door neighbor, a tad reclusive, but brilliant mathematics teacher.

Buying lunches from Yasuko's restaurant is the brightest part of Tetsuya's day.

Things take a sudden change when Yasuko's abusive ex-husband shows up one night to extort money from Yasuko but is killed by Yasuko and her daughter.

The acting n cinematography is top notch but the editing is not upto mark. There r scenes which are very slow n not required.

I didn't like the ending.

Any fan of thrillers should be no stranger to the name of Higashino. This film is of course a brilliant adaptation of the book. The tension has been created right from the start and maintained throughout the film. There have always been misguiding trivialites that lead you deep into the woods, or snow-clad mountains. You can sense there will be some more twists and turns in it while watching the plot unfolds.

This wasn't just a detective drama. I love it the best in Japanese movies.

I had watched it many times on TV at the year-end every year. But the last scenes made me cry every time. I have known Shinichi Tsutsumi and Yasuko Matsuyuki since I was a child. But I again realized they were such great actor and actress. He was really like a gloomy person. Actually, he's a talkative and jovial guy though.

Even if I know ending, I think it's one of masterpieces because it gives me goosebumps every time.

The title "devotion of a suspect X" also impressed me so much.