Aibou shirîzu: X Day

For any fan of the long running series "Aibou" (Partners), a movie about Itami seems a little bit of an odd choice, as his work in the series is normally to appear for two or three minutes and annoy the two protagonists of the series. But being as popular as "Aibou" was in Japan (especially some years ago), it is not strange that they decided to make a movie about him.

The movie decides to take a different path from the show, and centers on cyber-crime and some danger to the Japanese banking system. It all starts pretty small, though, with just one man dying after falling from the top of a building. It is soon discovered that he was killed, and Itami finds himself working with (and hating) a member of the cyber-crime division. Will they be able to find the killer? Have they any chance of finding the truth of why he was killed? What and who is really behind the killing?

The movie is a little bit slow, as it goes for long long conversations about difficult topics (it is not easy to follow when they go into technical stuff), and that makes it drag a little bit, as there are some characters that could have been cut out (one of them the protagonist of the Aibou show, Mizutani's Ukyo Katayama, whose cameo only makes sense if you are a fan). Also the story is a little bit dense for a mystery procedural.

Nonetheless the relationship between Itami and his new partner (played by Kei Tanaka) is fun, and they balance each other quite well. All actors do a nice job (it is basically a manly movie, with only a couple of women, almost more as a token presence than real characters). And the movie enjoys remembering us how banks have power, and how little we may be able to control our lives.

If you enjoy Aibou, you will probably enjoy this little movie, even if the pace is a little bit different from the show. If you don't know the show, you will lose a couple of aspects, and the movie may seem a little bit too long (even if it is just one hour forty minutes), but it is enjoyable enough (just not much action and too much talking).

At first, "X-Day" just started with an apparent suicide of a banker, but this simple beginning branched out into a very interesting web of interconnected crimes. The homicide detective and the internet crime man begin as adversaries but end up joining forces to get to the bottom of an intricate crime that threatens to launch "X-Day," a day of nationwide disaster for the banking industry of Japan. As political pressures mount against them solving the crime, how can they work beyond the accepted systems to bust the criminals behind this massive scam?

The actor playing the homicide detective had an unusual look about him, especially with his weird buffoonish mannerisms at the beginning. The internet crime guy plays more of the straight man here as he gets more and more involved in the investigation than he would like. The actress who plays the girlfriend of the suicide victim, is as pretty as she was effective in this key role.

Overall, this is a very exciting movie about a crime that involves homicide, internet fraud and criminal financial manipulation of the banking industry. It went to directions I never thought it would, climaxing in a grand fashion with a big explosive scene on a crowded Tokyo street. Good stuff!