Ikari   2016   Japan Rage
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Director:Sang-il Lee
Studio:Toho Pictures
Writer:Shûichi Yoshida, Sang-il Lee
IMDb Rating:7.2 (86 votes)
Awards:1 nomination
Genre:Drama, Mystery, Romance, Thriller
Duration:142 min
IMDb:4384088
Search:NetflixYouTube
Sang-il Lee  ...  (Director)
Shûichi Yoshida, Sang-il Lee  ...  (Writer)
 
Ken Watanabe  ...  Yohei Maki
Mirai Moriyama  ...  Shingo Tanaka
Aoi Miyazaki  ...  Aiko Maki
Satoshi Tsumabuki  ...  Yuma Fujita
Gô Ayano  ...  Naoto Onishi
Suzu Hirose  ...  Izumi Komiya
Hideko Hara  ...  Takako Fujita (Yuma's mother)
Chizuru Ikewaki  ...  Asuka
Mitsuki Takahata  ...  Kaoru
Takahiro Miura  ...  Sosuke Kitami
Pierre Taki  ...  Kunihisa Nanjo
Akira Emoto  ...  
Eri Fukatsu  ...  
Hiroaki Iwanaga  ...  Sexy Guy at Pool Party
Ryuichi Sakamoto  ...  Composer
Comments: There were a couple touching moments but I can only conclude I don't find resonance with this director. (I did not like the critically and popularly loved Villain at all.) He "can assemble an excellent bunch of ingredients, but he overcooks them and the result is a less than tasty meal." I love the technique of layering space and time but somehow I got tired of it in this film. It created a rhythm I couldn't dance to. Three actors did a swell job of acting guilty for a couple hours, but who didn't see through that? I had told myself that I'd never watch another film with Mirai Moriyama but I think the long hair and goatee did wonders for him.

A big bell rang every time someone said the word trust. Obvious much? There were a couple enjoyable moments in the film where I thought Aoi Miyazaki was going to lose it, turn evil. I want to see that sometime!

A scene in Rage that I consider an "excellent ingredient". Yuma (Satoshi Tsumabuki) got the call from the cops asking if he knew Naoto (Gou Ayano). Forgive the script writing boof of presenting the conversation in a way that would never happen. Yuma starts trying to erase the existence of Naoto in his home. He's tossing stuff in the garbage etc., and then we see a suitcase flying outside. I assume it's Yuma tossing a Naoto suitcase out. Then more suitcases keep flying out. I'm thinking wtf is up with this? Then we realize we're seeing Tanaka tossing the suitcases out from where he works for some inexplicable reason. This is what I call layering space and time. It doesn't matter if these things were supposed to be happening at the same time. The director did a ton of it in the film. I love this technique/device in film making. M, the best film ever made, uses it to great effect. It's not until near the end when Yuma sits down with Kaoru, Naoto's foster sibling, that we understand what that cop call was all about.

Another example is where a character is saying something but the visual has changed to a different character but the original character's dialog keeps going. Where Have All the Flowers Gone takes the technique to the extreme, imaginatively and wonderfully.

There's something clumsy, or cocky, about the way this director employs the technique such that I'm forced out of the scene instead of being absorbed by it. The transition isn't smooth. At the moment of recognition that the director jumped space and time in a tricky way I found my self too often feeling like I got ripped off on the previous scene. I don't want to look backwards. The director tried to create mystery through obfuscation. That's not cool.

Summary: A man brutally murders a married couple and leaves behind the words "Ikari" ("Anger") written with their blood. The killer undergoes plastic surgery and flees.

At 3 different locations in Japan, a male stranger appear. People there suspect that the stranger might be the murderer.

At a fishing harbor in Chiba, Yohei Maki (Ken Watanabe) works at the harbor and he has a daughter, Aiko (Aoi Miyazaki). Aiko begins to date Tetsuya Tashiro (Kenichi Matsuyama). Yohei begins to suspect that his daughter's boyfriend might be the killer, because he is using a fake name.

In downtown Tokyo, gay male Yuma Fujita (Satoshi Tsumabuki) works at an advertising agency. He meets Naoto Onishi (Gou Ayano) and they begin to live together. While getting Naoto to open his mind, Yuma begins to suspect Naoto as the killer.

In Okinawa, Izumi Komiya (Suzu Hirose) and her mother move to an isolated island there. One day, she takes a walk and meets Shingo Tanaka (Mirai Moriyama). The young is backpacking alone. Izumi gets close to Shingo, but Shingo asks Izumi to not to tell others about him.

Based on the novel "Ikari" by Shuichi Yoshida (published January 24, 2014 by Chuokoron-Shinsha).


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