REEL JAPAN

Score: 9/10

Based on a novel by Nakayama Shichiri which chronicles the travails of two young people, Tone and Mikiko, whose world is violently wrenched from them by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami leaving them orphans and throwing them together. It also boldly tells a story of a series of grisly murders occurring years later. The film flashes backward and forward in time as we learn about these survivors and observe the shadows cast by their suffering and hope. 

Abe Hiroshi is perfect as the lonely and bereft detective who sees the case through to its bitter end. He is just engaged enough emotionally in events for us to know that he is processing his own loss through them. 

Satoh Takeru effectively plays Tone as constantly rattled and living on a hair trigger. Kiyohara Kaya plays the adult Mikoko, now an idealistic but frustrated young welfare officer. Her edgy performance keeps you guessing: Is she aggressively compassionate? Or compassionately aggressive? The chemistry between Abe and Kiyohara is electric. Years later, they would reunite in LAST SAMURAI STANDING, where, as the ancient vengeful warrior Ikusagami, he would haunt her steps in relentless pursuit. 

Surprisingly, Japanese film stars Yoshioka Hidetaka and Nagayama Eita show up as relatively minor characters. But they accomplish much with their limited screen time. 

An hour and a half into the film, we find Mikiko saying: “You have to ask for help. If you do, someone will respond. There’s still hope. Someone will reach out to you.” Does she still believe her own words? Yet this poetry ties together all the threads of disaster, survival, survivor’s guilt, poverty, charity, security, and a broken welfare system. 

The fulcrum of the story is Kei, an old woman and fellow tsunami survivor looking after Tone and Mikoko. Misuko Baisho plays her memorably with compassion and fragility (an interesting contrast to her evil clan matriarch in GANNIBAL). It was the novelist’s flash of genius to tell two stories through Kei’s suffering and unite those stories into a compelling mystery. 

Director Zeze Takahisa succeeds in bringing book to screen in an all-star, big budget production. Unlike so many other films, it does not suffer from its many time jumps; its editing and pacing are solely beholden to the storytelling. 

(© ReelJapan.com November 2025 all rights reserved)