The Third Murder

Eiga Sai 2019

The Red Carpet @ Shang

The first scene shows a man murdering another man with a hammer, beating him to a pulp then burning the body. This sets the pace for a complex legal thriller filled with mysterious motives, a dubious confession, the looming sentence of a death penalty and several questions to further make it more complicated than it already is.

Misumi confesses to killing his boss and torching his body. Yet his motives for this brutal crime keeps changing and his legal team have a difficult time believing him. Enter Shigemori, a renowned lawyer brought in to help the defense team. Shigemori has a connection with the defendant as he is the son of the judge who convicted Misumi for a previous crime. A crime for which he served 30 years yet is never clearly mentioned what it was about, merely alluded to. Shigemori starts investigating by questioning several witnesses who vouch for the character of Misumi - the quiet yet strange type who keeps to himself.

Shigemori faces a stumbling block when an article in a tabloid narrates an interview with Misumi. He says that the widow of his boss contacted him through email to hire him to kill her husband and he will be paid for it. They would also share the money from the life insurance she will get. Confronting his flippant client, Shigemori probes him for more details. 

Yet another angle surfaces from the close friendship between Misumi and Sakie who is the daughter of his boss. Sakie has a brace around one leg, walks with difficult and  the real reason for her brace is also as doubtful as Misumi's various motives for the crime. Shigemori also discovers that Sakie's father abused her sexually so this presents as another motive for Misumi to kill his boss.

Another masterpiece from noted director Hirokazu Kore-eda whose films usually focus on family relationships and all its complexities. Here, he explores a common factor among the three main male characters - Misumi, Shigemori and the victim. They are all fathers with tangled ties with their daughters. Misumi is estranged from his now grown up daughter mainly to his 30 year prison term. Shigemori is divorced and hardly has any bonding time with his own daughter. A high school age girl who stole from a store, an act for her lawyer father to come to her rescue. The victim, himself who it turns out was preying on his daughter Sakie.

The third murder also has a vital focal point  - the Japanese legal system which still imposes the death penalty for certain gruesome crimes. A major contention was whether Misumi stole his boss' wallet before or after he burned the body. It seems there is a different sentence just from burglary then murder and/or murder than burglary.

The mininalist cinematography consists of snow capped mountains, courtroom scenes, a small town locale and consultations in jail between Misumi and Shigemori. These sessions are separated by a glass window with a small round circle to hear and listen to each other. 

After the verdict was read, Misumi and Shigemori meet again for their last session and their faces are intertwined as seen from the reflections on the glass partition. It is a memorable scene, one showing they might be the one and the same person in more ways than one. In most movies dealing with a legal drama, this segment would be where the defendant would come clean to his lawyer, either admit or deny he committed the crime. But in true form, this film remains as vague as Misumi and as perplexed as Shigemori. Enough said!