Tag: Toshihide Tonesaku

Bayside Shakedown 3: Set the Guys Loose (踊る大捜査線 THE MOVIE 3 ヤツらを解放せよ！, Katsuyuki Motohiro, 2010)

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It’s all change at Wangan police station in the third instalment in the Bayside Shakedown series, Let the Guys Loose (踊る大捜査線 THE MOVIE 3 ヤツらを解放せよ！Doru Daisousasen the Movie 3: Yatsura wo Kaihou seyo!). Seven years on from the previous film, many things have changed. Aoshima (Yuji Oda) is now in charge of his team and the precinct is set to move to new purpose-built premises boasting the latest high-tech security systems which will aid them in combating potential terrorism and safeguarding local dignitaries. Even so, the gang will have to deal with some unfinished business from the past before they can fully move on as the circular tale takes us right back to the original film’s villain. 

Following the familiar formula, Motohiro opens with a gag sequence in which Aoshima prepares to give a briefing only it’s not about a case it’s about the logistics of moving offices of which he is in charge and characteristically vowing to do the best job possible. Hindering his progress, however, are two bizarre crimes, the first a bank robbery investigated by his colleague/long-term love interest Sumire (Eri Fukatsu) in which no money is stolen, and a bus hijacking he investigates himself in which the hijackers simply left the scene again without stealing anything. Ironically enough a theft does take place during the move involving three pistols which happen to belong to Aoshima, Sumire, and a new recruit from China, Wang (Kenichi Takito). Soon enough a body turns up on a boat along with Aoshima’s gun sending the gang on the chase for the mysterious thieves. 

The thing we’re constantly told about the new building is how secure it’s going to be, which makes the theft even more ironic, but the truth is that in true franchise style pretty much anyone and everyone is walking in and out carrying moving boxes so nothing is ever really “secure” even in the police station, harking back to the minor villain in the first film who was able to sneak in because he was wearing a fake cosplay police uniform and no one noticed him. Inevitably, this invisible vulnerability eventually comes back to haunt them when the criminals are simply able to steal the manual for the security system and replace it with one of their own to render it unusable to the police later trapped inside the building. Meanwhile approaches to public safety become a matter for debate when it arises that the criminals’ demand is that all of the villains we’ve seen Aoshima arrest so far including psychopathic serial killer Manami (Kyoko Koizumi) who still has a sizeable following online should be released. Counter-intuitively, the police bigwigs are in favour of acquiescing with only Muroi (Toshiro Yanagiba), who has now been promoted to sit at the table himself, objecting on the grounds that it simply isn’t safe to release such dangerous criminals back into society. 

Rather than simply bureaucracy and funding concerns, Bayside Shakedown’s third instalment is more directly critical of the interplay between politics and justice as it becomes clear that the majority of police chiefs care more about public opinion than the law while also mindful of the upcoming general election. Meanwhile the same problem arises with the local police being sidelined by the elites from HQ, a smooth liaison officer Torikai (Shun Oguri) arriving to solve any disputes insisting that the locals be fully respected and allowed to turn their jobs only to turn dark and authoritarian after suffering a catastrophic injury on the job. Once again, Aoshima is forced to consider if his work has real value not only because of the way he’s treated by the cops from HQ but subjected to a healthcare crisis which leads him and many others to assume he’s not long to live. It’s later discovered that he’s been misdiagnosed during his annual checkup, but his boss unethically decides to keep that from him noticing he’s become depressed and lost his mojo, hoping that he’ll be easier to manager but quite the reverse turns out to be true. Again mimicking their previous heart-to-hearts throughout the series, Aoshima perks up after some encouraging words from Sumire in addition to some words of wisdom from the late Waku presented by his rookie nephew and decides to live as if there’s no tomorrow going flat out for justice while caring nothing for his safety. 

Even more than ten years on from the TV series and first big-screen outing, the romance between Aoshima and Sumire still hasn’t quite blossomed despite their respective brushes with death. Many things seem set to change for the Wangan police, the new building acting as a kind of reset while Muroi prepares to move into a more political role and a new, somewhat surprising, local police chief is selected to lead them into a new future just as dedicated to compassionate local policing defined by fairness and justice as they have ever been. 

Trailer (no subtitles)

Masquerade Hotel (マスカレード・ホテル, Masayuki Suzuki, 2019)

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The thing about hotels is, people often go to them when they want to be someone else, so how can you be on the look out for suspicious behaviour when everyone is to some degree acting out of character? Keigo Higashino is one of Japan’s best known authors particularly praised for his elaborately plotted mysteries. In contrast to some of his famous detective novels, Masquerade Hotel (マスカレード・ホテル) leans into his softer side, taking its cues from Agatha Christie in its ultimately cheerful exploration of the strange world of hotels while praising the detective acumen both of cynical policemen and eager to please hoteliers. 

The police are hot on the trail of a serial killer and, due to clues found at the previous crime scenes, have concluded the next killing will take place at the Hotel Cotesia Tokyo. To scout out the potential crime scene, the detectives have co-opted the hotel’s basement as an incident room and are preparing to go undercover to keep an eye on things upstairs. Dishevelled detective Nitta (Takuya Kimura) has been assigned to the front desk because of his English skills apparently honed while living abroad in his youth, and is to be paired with earnest hotelier Naomi Yamagishi (Masami Nagasawa) who will do her best to turn him into a first rate hotelman. 

As might be expected, Nitta and Naomi do not exactly hit it off. Gruff and given to giving everyone in 50m radius the hard stare, Nitta is a shaggy haired middle-aged man in creased suits and shiny shoes. The first thing Naomi makes him do is get a haircut which does wonders for his image, but also plays into the peculiar art of masquerade which defines hotel life. Nitta is in the habit of calling the guests “customers” which instantly irritates Naomi who has spent the entirety of her professional life learning to be deferent. She reminds him that in here the guests are in charge, they make the rules and therefore can never break them. Her job is to provide the best service, which means she often has to set her personal pride aside and allow the sometimes unpleasant clientele, the ones who like to come to posh hotels to throw their weight around and abuse the staff, to get away with being obtuse because that’s just part of her job. 

That’s a big ask from Nitta who is both a proud man and a justice loving policeman to whom the idea of letting people act badly is almost anathema. To do his job, however, he’ll have to learn to bear it or risk letting a potential serial killer slip through his fingers. What Naomi realises is that they’re more alike than they first seemed. Both of their jobs rely on an astute assessment of their targets, even if they come at it from opposite ends. Naomi knows that each of her guests is wearing a kind of mask, taking on a slightly different persona when they enter her hotel, but her job is to see past it without ever letting on. A good hotelier knows what the guest wants before they do and is always ready to provide it, that’s the nature of service. So Naomi trusts her guests and is careful not to judge them. Nitta, meanwhile, is a policeman so he’s trained to question everything and suspect everyone. His job is to unmask and confront his suspects with who they really are. 

They both, however got into this game essentially because they want to protect people even if she wants to protect them inside and he out. Which means of course that they can work together after all, learning a little something from each other along the way. Naomi, well versed in the liberties often taken by her guests, is nearly taken in by an obvious scam that only Nitta is quick enough to catch thanks to his cynical policeman’s logic. He’s also first to suspect that there’s something not quite right with a harmless little old lady, and though Naomi senses it too she’s minded to let it go and doubles down on being the perfect servant thanks to her animosity towards Nitta. That “not quite right”, however, proves to be a slight misreading of the guest who, like many Nitta encounters, is pretending to be something they’re not for reasons that prove perfectly understandable once revealed. 

But then, Higashino characteristically pulls the rug out from under us and asks if we haven’t been suckered in buying all those reasonable excuses. Thanks to his conversations with Naomi, Nitta begins to get a grip on the crime, while she struggles with her conscience after learning that her guests may be in much more danger than she thought. Staking all on justice, the pair of them vow to abandon their respective professions if a guest gets hurt, but fail to realise that the crime may hit far closer to home than they’d anticipated. Nevertheless, what we’re left with is a strangely whimsical admiration for the weird world of hotels where no one is quite the same person they were before they walked through the revolving doors.

Original trailer (no subtitles)