The only problem is that, as Tomoaki delves deeper into examining the evidence, he finds multiple contradictory claims from Misumi, including entirely new statements that he’s given to the media without his knowledge. The client, Misumi ( Kōji Yakusho), already has a criminal record (Tomoaki’s father was the judge responsible for considering his previous murder conviction 30 years earlier), and all the evidence is pointing towards his guilt. Masaharu Fukuyama plays Tomoaki Shigemori, a prominent lawyer faced with defending a client accused of murdering his boss – a crime which will lead to the death penalty if found guilty. It goes without saying that Kore-eda has no interest in “You can’t handle the truth!” style courtroom showdowns, with the moral and logistical complexity of this murder case handled compassionately, refusing to condemn characters even as it constantly asks the audience to question the case using the contradicting evidence presented before them.
There’s no doubt that he’s a master at taking heightened and sometimes otherworldly concepts, then treating them unequivocally as carefully considered character studies – so why is he still largely assessed as a solely realist director? His latest effort, The Third Murder, also toys with the mechanics of a well known and frequently heightened genre: the legal thriller. He’s dabbled in science fiction (1998’s After Life), a “Jidaigeki” samurai film (2006’s Hana) and even an adaptation of a manga about a sentient sex doll (2009’s Airdoll).
Kore-Era’s latest departure from social realism What is peculiar is that, almost three decades into his directing career, seemingly every review of his films compares him to other social realist filmmakers, constantly overlooking the uniqueness in his many experimentations with different genres of filmmaking. Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda has spent a significant portion of his career frequently being labelled as contemporary cinema’s heir to legendary director Yasujirō Ozu – a charge he finds flattering, even as he claims to find more influence from the social realism of British filmmaker Ken Loach.
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