Yôgisha X no kenshin

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.

First of all let me admit that I haven't read the book "Devotion of Suspect X" upon which this film was based. Apart from few loose ends in the movie about the characters (could be director's fault or not), this movie fed me with surprises one after another. Loved the way the story unfolded with these suspense elements which make me feel shame that I haven't read the book. The suspense at the Climax was a shock and is totally unsuspected .

This movie is copied/inspired/plagiarized in India with the name "Dhrishyam" which is again going to be inspired to another language from the same country.

'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 am not a big fan of movies which are based on books. Just look at what they did with Harry Potter and others (LOTR is an exception). So I wasn't much excited when my friend told me it was based on a book and I tried not to watch it. He practically had to make me sit through the first 15 minutes of the movie to make sure I was intrigued. Well, I am glad he made me watch it because Suspect X is one the best mystery thriller movies I've watched in the last couple of years.

Suspect X is a story of a murdered husband, a wife, a daughter and two geniuses. Manabu Yukawa is a scientist who helps out the police once in a while. And Tetsuya Ishigami is Mathematician who lives next door to the wife of the murdered man. Both have their reasons to be involved. The story is written tightly. The cinematography is hauntingly beautiful.

The strongest point of the movie is the interactions of the two geniuses. When they are there talking, you don't want to miss a second of their conversation. They are not conniving and trying to out do each other. They are just old friends talking. And that's what makes this movie so special.

I highly recommend it to those who love Hitchcock movies.

Note: I don't know Japanese and watched this movie with English Subtitles. It in no way affected the mood of the movie.

This movie is one of the best crime thriller I've seen in it some time. As soon as the lead characters are shown, I'd the idea that this is going to be a different ride. The movie doesn't waste anytime getting into the plot which thickens and becomes interesting as the movie goes on. The dynamics between the two master-minds is the highlight of this one.

The plan for the cover-up is brilliant. We feel that the cover-up takes care of all the things, or so it seems. We are shown a couple of clues on to how the cover-up is done but it's subtle. If we focus on the movie, we can spot these and then piece the plot together before it's actually revealed. This makes the movie even more interesting. As the movie reach its final act, we see a significant change of tone to focus more on the emotions. The climax will have a deep impact on you.

It's must watch for all the movie lovers and especially for crime thriller fans.